


To the Stars

by InventorBenny



Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Comedy, Gore, Moonquest, Multi, trans honeydew, trans rythian, yogscast - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-07
Updated: 2017-01-23
Packaged: 2018-03-06 14:26:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 22
Words: 32,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3137666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InventorBenny/pseuds/InventorBenny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the story of Honeydew, a dwarf, exiled from his home, and driven into the strange overworld above. Luckily, he's good at making friends. On the other hand, between the odd request he made of the dwavern culture, and his propensity for making a mess, the likelihood of him achieving his dream--going to the moon--seems slim. It won't be easy, but he can make it!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Odd Dwarf

**Author's Note:**

> All of these chapters are going to be episodic in the way that they deal with a new problem that loosely pertains to the last one.

Honeydew was a young dwarf, only 377 years old. He was the youngest dwarf from the most recent batch. He worked in the mines as Digger, 2nd class, #532. Because of his class and his number I.D., he was given what everyone else considered one of the worst rooms in the entire mountain. But he didn’t mind. The room was at the very edge of one of the many cliffs on the crag, and it had a balcony to look out from. Every night, Honeydew would go out onto the balcony, and stare at the stars. The other dwarfs would not go onto this balcony. They did not like the feeling of the wind, and they were uncomfortable without the feeling of lamplight on their skin. Honeydew however, loved the openness his balcony brought his mind. In fact, many of the other dwarves made would poke fun at him for his strange habit. One night on the balcony, his entire world changed with nine short words.

 

_I wonder if I could go to the moon._

 

He sat up. This was a wonderful thought. He sat on the meta-stone floor of his room and started writing up a Letter of Concentration for the Dwarvern Council. A good Letter of Concentration could cause huge changes within society. The most recent Letter created the plans for the recent housing quadrant set up in an old mine. It this worked, the entire dwarvern culture could change completely.

 

 

 

The next morning, Honeydew got up to drop his letter off at the Office of Consul Greygull. Greygull was in charge of technological advances. He brought them the electo-lamp, the mining laser, and the Drillmonger. If anyone could be persuaded to help, it would be him.

 

“May I help you?” asked the receptionist.

 

“Actually, I was hoping to get a Letter of Concentration in to Consul Greygull.”

 

“Oh yes?”

 

He handed the letter to the woman. She looked it over and laughed. “Are you sure you want me to give this to him? He’s very busy.”

 

Honeydew scowled. “Yes, I _do_ want you to give it to him, and I’d prefer it if you could do it with a straight face.”

 

“Alright. Check back here in a day or two,” she snickered again, “Good luck.”

 

Honeydew was seething. He turned on his tiny dwarf heel, and marched down the halls to his station.

 

 _The dumb receptionist has no idea what she’s talking about._ She _has no taste for good science. At least_ cultured _people will understand the necessity of astronomy. Also her hair was terrible._

 

His thoughts went on like this until he reached his mining station. His laser, headlamp, backup pickaxe, and flask were all there, waiting to be strapped onto him as usual.

 

Honeydew’s friend patted him squarely on the back. “Hey there, Honeydew,” Headheaver said, “did you have a good time on your balcony last night?” he asked laughing.

 

“I did. In fact,” Honeydew said hesitantly, as they started walking to their assigned posts, “I had an idea.”

 

“Another one?” Headheaver responded, taking a drink from his flask. “Is it better than the last one?”

 

“I think so,” he said, “I sent it to Greygull.”

 

Headheaver spat out his mead in a long stream, “You did _what?_ ”

 

“I sent a Letter of Concentration to Greygull. I really think this is a good idea.”

 

“Oh, no, no, Honeydew, you’re killing me here. If it gets rejected, you’ll be a laughingstock.”

 

“It won’t get rejected.”

 

“Well, let’s hear it then,” Once again, he took a drink from his flask.

 

“I want to send dwarves to the moon.”

 

This time when Headheaver spat out his mead it was more of a spray rather than a stream. Headheaver started cackling. “Surely you’re joking?”

 

“Shut up.”

 

“Dear Torvid!” he exclaimed, “You _aren’t_ joking! Oh, this is too good!”

 

People were starting to look in their direction.

 

“Fine. Dumb idea. Sorry I brought it up. Kindly shut your mouth, please.”

 

 

 

 

A few days later, Honeydew showed up at the Office of Consul Greygull. At the sight of the smirking receptionist, he knew the outcome of his petition even before he saw the paper. Stamped in dark red across the paper was the word DENIED.

 

 

 

“So, see? It was never going to work in the first place” Headheaver shouted over the ruckus of the bar, “Here, have another drink, on me.”

 

Honeydew merely grunted in response.

 

“Oh come on. Don’t take it too personally. Have some fun,” the bartender came back with another drink, “and a drink.”

 

Honeydew stared into his mead, when a thought occurred to him. It was risky, but it could work. “I still have another option.”

 

Headheaver’s smile slid off his face like hot butter off a hot pan.

 

 “You’d better not be thinking what I think you’re thinking.”

 

“Are you thinking of a trial before the council?”

 

“Yes!”

 

“Then I am thinking what you’re thinking.”

 

Headheaver laughed again, but nervously.

 

“No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. This, this is the mead talking. What I said about having another drink?” he said, snatching the tankard out from in front of him, “Out the window. This is madness. If you fail you’ll be exiled.”

 

“I’m aware of the repercussions.”

 

“And first you’ll have to send the letter to all the other council members as well.”

 

“I’m also aware of the procedures. And I’m not drunk.”

 

“Fine. After the trial, I’ll help you pack.”

 

Headheaver pushed his stool away from the bar and walked away.

 

 

 

It had been months since that night at the bar. They had been spent sending countless Letters of Concentration to the various council members. As expected, they all rejected the plan outlined in his letters.

 

It’s  not that Honeydew wanted to be removed from society. He had faith that in person, he would be able to convince the council that space was a good place to focus funding. He had many good points to make, even points he had not put into his letters. He also thought that maybe in person, his enthusiasm would help.

 

The hour of his trial was almost upon them. There was a knock at his door.

 

“Who is it?” asked Honeydew. He knew who it was.

 

A gruff male voice answered him. “It’s the Escort Squad. We have come to take you to the trial.”

 

“And me!” came Headheaver’s call.

 

Honeydew opened the door.  

 

“Hey, Honeydew.”

 

“Hey. Why are you here? I thought that they just had the guards take their trialees”

 

“They’re letting me take you to the trial. Are you ready?”

 

“I have been for a while.”

 

“Ok.”

 

They walked down the stuffy stone halls of the Complex. Rows of dwarves had formed to watch their little parade. They stood restlessly, watching the group move down the hall. They were all murmuring to each other about the procession.

 

“What’d this guy want from the council again?”

 

“Something about sending dwarves to the sun, I think.”

 

“Sending dwarves to the _moon_ you idiot.”

 

Headheaver spoke, making Honeydew jump. “They’re letting me take you to the trail so I can say goodbye.”

 

“Well, that was silly of them.”

 

“No, I’m serious. They already are prejudiced against you.”

 

“Just trust me, ok?”

 

“They aren’t going to let me come with you, you know.”

 

“I know. I know.”

 

The walk took a long time, but they finally got to where they needed to be. The Chamber of Testing. The guards grabbed a door each, and with all their might, swung them open.

 

A blast of heat from the lava hit Honeydew before anything else. Then the sweet smell of molten rock. The crowd roared.

 

“This is as far as I can go,” Said Headheaver. He looked away, “I’ll see you later.”

 

Honeydew turned back towards the massive room. Pillars of lava were falling from the ceiling into the lava below. Honeydew walked across the stone bridge to the large rock circle in the center of the room. The bridge he entered on sank into the molten sea. The council looked down at him from their bench surrounding his little circle. They all wore varying expressions of anger, ranging from disbelief, to annoyance, all the way to outright rage.

 

In the center, Consul Whitemarch raised his hands to quiet the stands of dwarves who had come to, hopefully, witness another dwarf get kicked out of the complex.

 

Consul Whitemarch was, as far as anyone knew, the oldest dwarf who had ever lived. He was famed for his ability to keep his wits about him, even in his old age.

 

Suddenly, no small amount of nervousness hit Honeydew. He realized now, with all the council members looking down on him, that he had only a small chance, if any chance at all, to convince these dwarves. But he would still go through with it.

 

“Dwarf Honeydew!” shouted one of the council members.

 

The crowd laughed.

 

“Eh, sorry,” Honeydew said, “What was that?”

 

The council member that had spoken sighed, “We wanted to inform you that we, as a group, have reviewed your request, and due to its—erm—unusualness, we will allow you one final chance to back down from this trial,” the crowd jeered, “We want you to know that no one will think any less of you for doing so,” a mixture of boos and laughs came from the crowd.

 

Honeydew stood in a manner that he hoped was confident, “I believe that my cause is worth the risk,” _It’s too late for_ me _to back down with my honor anyway,_ he didn’t say.

 

Murmuring came from the council. Whitemarch himself spoke up, “Very well then. Let the trial commence. State your name, your intent, and your group designation.”

 

“I am Dewbeard. I am a Digger, 2nd class, #532. I have come to convince you all to help fund a project of great proportion—going to the moon!”

 

A silence ensued. The only noise was the bubbling and popping of the lava around them. They were not taking this as well as he had hoped.

 

“And, this project, how did you come up with it?” asked a council member Honeydew recognized as Consul Firefalk.

 

 

“Well, one night, I was sitting out on my balcony, looking at the stars, when suddenly, the thought struck me. No one has been to the moon, ever! No one even knows what kind of cheese it’s made out of. Is it Swiss cheese? Is it gouda? Cheddar even? Think of all the dwarves we could feed with all that cheese.”

 

The council started talking amongst themselves.

 

“He has a point.”

 

“A bad point. Studies show that the moon is only 27% cheese.”

 

One of the female dwarfs on the council spoke to him.

 

“How do you intend to remove the stone and dust from the cheese?”

 

Dewbeard froze. This was not a question that he had planned for. He hadn’t even known that the entire moon wasn’t made of cheese.

 

“Well, I haven’t gotten that far yet. The moon should be our first goal, and after that, together we can decide how to use the resources we get from the moon.”

 

They didn’t like that. They started talking again. Once they were finished, a short dwarf asked, “How are dwarves supposed to survive up there? There isn’t any air. I assume,” he said, more than a little derogatorily, “you have thought of this?”

 

“Of course,” Honeydew said, feeling blood rushing into his face, “as of right now, we have special equipment that we can use in underwater caves for mining. With a little bit of redesign, we could use it in space to breath.”

 

“What I would like to know,” said a lady-dwarf on the right, “is what will we do on the moon? Jump around? Mine the cheese? Scans show that there isn’t metal on the moon.”

 

“I assume that while there would indeed be a large amount of jumping around, mining the cheese really ought to be the top priority.”

 

 

A dwarf towards the middle spoke up. “Actually, the typical melting point of cheese is around 106 degrees. Our lasers operate at 2043 degrees. They would immediately melt the cheese.”

 

“Well we—“

 

“Thank you, that will be all.”

 

“What?”

 

“That’s it. The Council with now debate amongst themselves on your plan.”

 

The rock bridge rose once more out of the lava, and Honeydew was escorted to a waiting room.

 

It took only two minutes for the council to make up their minds.

 

He was called in, and the council went through their standard rejection speech.

 

Honeydew’s heart sank. His bag was packed with the maximum allotted equipment. The allowed equipment isn’t much by any standards anyway. A pickaxe, some basic supplies, and wool clothing. Also his horomone Treatment. A small Brightside, but a Brightside nonetheless.

 

 

He was exiled the next morning. When the guards came to his room, they did not talk to him. He did not talk to them. They walked in silence to the expulsion gates.

 

“Open it up!” called the Gate Operator.

 

The two large, stone doors swung open.

 

Sunlight seeped in through the space. Wind and fresh air came in. Honeydew had to shield his eyes from the light until he adjusted.

 

Someone pushed him from behind.

 

“Get a move on. We haven’t got all day,” said one of the guards.

 

Honeydew, for the first time in his life, stepped into the sun. While it was warm everything else was cold. Snow was all over the ground. Some was falling at that moment. He closed his eyes and tilted his face up to it.

 

“Drop the ledge!” came the call of the Gate Operator.

 

Suddenly the ground fell out from under him. He started sliding down the incline feet first. Trees passed him. One hit him. He started spinning down the mountain. The ground disappeared from under him once again.

_Paff_

 

His fall ended when he slammed into a pile of snow on the ground. He slowly pulled himself out of the pile. He slid down that. When he reached the bottom, he started pulling himself along the ground. He heard shouting in the distance. And that was all before he blacked out.

 

 

 

“You think he’s ok, Xephos?”

 

“He shouldn’t be. He’s breathing though.”

 

Silence.

 

“We’re taking him back, aren’t we?”

 

“Yep.”

 

 

 

“This place smells terrible.”

 

“That isn’t my fault.”

 

“ You could stand to tidy up your side of the cave.”

 

“It’s just fine. I just have a lot of gadgets.”

 

“Your gadgets smell terrible.”

 

Honeydew sighed in his sleep and rolled over. He then sat bolt upright screaming.

 

The two men in the cave with him started screaming.

 

Honeydew screamed at them questioningly.

 

They both screamed in reply.

 

Suddenly everyone stopped screaming.

 

Now that it was quieter, Honeydew was able to focus on what the two looked like.

 

The one on the left was the shortest out of the two, and slightly thinner, with dark hair and a goatee, plus equally dark eyebrows. He was wearing a luxurious orange leather jacket, which had been unbuttoned to reveal a light-blue and white stripy shirt, with colors to match his eyes. The strangest thing about the man was his skin. Rather than the pasty white that came with working underground, his skin was a brown color, almost bronze.

 

The tall one had on some strange combination of a lab coat and a sports jacket. He had dark eyes, and in contrast, light skin. Scars ran from the left of his forehead and all the way, probably, to the right of his chin, which would have been more clear, if only his beard wasn’t in the way. It was shorter than the goatee of his friend, almost like a teenager who had meant to shave it off, but hadn’t gotten around to it the day before.

 

The man with dark hair spoke up.

 

“I guess Simon is awake.”

 

“Simon?” said Honeydew.

 

The tall man, the one with light hair spoke: “You sigh a lot in your sleep. Sigh. Man. What is your name?”

 

There were so many possibilities in front of Honeydew. He could be called anything he wanted to be. He could change his identity completely.

 

“My name’s Honeydew.”

 

Dammit.

 

The man with the dark hair stuck out a hand. “Nice to meet you. I’m Xephos. This is Lalna. We’re…” they looked at each other.

 

“…New around here,” finished Lalna.

 

“I took a flesh sample. I hope you don’t mind. I was picking up some strange readings from you with just my scanner. It turns out you’re a dwarf.”

 

“Well, I knew that.”

 

Xephos looked abashed. “Well I—”

 

“The point,” interrupted Lalna, “is we didn’t know that there were dwarves in this world.”

 

“What do you mean by ‘world?’” asked Honeydew.

 

“Doesn’t matter,” replied Xephos, “Would you mind if we did some tests on you? For scientific purposes?”

 

“What kind of scientific purposes?”

 

“Just to log the limits of the dwarves. You’re a species that neither of us knew existed and, as scientists, I feel like we should learn more about you.”

 

Lalna spoke up, “Maybe some of your species could help out with our space program.”

 

Honeydew’s ears perked up.

 

“You two are going into space?”

 

The two men looked at each other. “Yes, we are,” Lalna said, “Are—are you interested?”

 

Honeydew practically shouted, “Yes! I was going to do it myself until now. That takes a load off my shoulders,” he looked around, “where’s the rocket? And the space center? How many men do you have?”

 

“Er,” Xephos started, “We have no rocket.”

 

“The corner that the space center is in is denoted by the sign on that wall,” added Lalna, pointing at the corner of the cave.

 

“We now have a grand total of,” said Xephos, writing on a notepad, “Three people. Including you.”  

 

For a minute Honeydew sat with his mouth open and stared at the two of them.

 

“Oh.”

 

“We actually have two sheep in the pen outside.”

 

“I see.”

 

“So we can count them too.”

 

“Yeah I get that.”

 

“There are a lot of zombies and skeletons and the like in the caves but they attack us so I don’t know if we should count them or not.”

 

“Probably not.”

 

There was an awkward silence from the trio.

 

“So,” said Xephos hesitantly, “will you join us?”

 

Dew considered what might lay ahead of him. These two seemed like good, and fairly normal, people, but they also seemed woefully unprepared for the space program they wanted. By Torvid, they lived in a cave!

 

However, Honeydew himself never been outside of the dwarvern city. He had never encountered any monsters while mining, and didn’t know what kind of dreadful thing a sheep might be. If he was going to survive this attempt to go to space, he might have to join these strangers.

 

Honeydew faked a large smile, “Sure thing! It sounds great.”

 

Xephos stood up. “Fantastic! Lalna, get me my crisps! We’re going to show Honeydew here around.”

 

“You have a beetle on your face.” Honeydew said.

 

“Really?” Xephos said, seemingly excited. He felt his face until he found it.

 

He then stuck it in his mouth and chewed it up.

 

Forget the whole thing about them being normal.


	2. The Big Tour

“You obviously have seen the ‘space corner,’ but we have some other things to show you. First though,” Xephos said, putting a headset on Honeydew, “wear this. It’ll automatically sense when we can’t hear each other and we can use it to talk electronically.”

 

“Okay.”

 

Lalna walked back up with a large jar and handed it to Xephos.

 

“Fantastic!” said Xephos, opening up the jar and stuffing handfuls of crispy-looking bits of color into his mouth, “Follow me to the furnace room.”

 

They passed through a hallway poorly carved out of the surrounding stone.

_This place could really use the touch of a dwarf._

 

They entered a room with a wall completely covered with stone furnaces.

 

They had been shoddily constructed and placed against the wall. It looked like each individual stone had been glued together with             tree sap (of which Honeydew learned by overhearing some of the dwarves who had built the _temporary_ scaffolding.) A wooden table in the middle of the room seemed to act as a worktop, with bits of metal scattered across the surface.

 

“It’s… Nice,” Honeydew managed out.

 

“I thought it was nice!” Xephos said excitedly, taking another mouthful of color crisps, “Lalna wanted to add a window to let some light in, but I thought it would detract from the integrity of the cave.”

 

“No, just leave it as it is.”

 

 

“Fantastic. Let us show you the bedroom. We only have two beds right now, but we can take some wool from the sheep we have outside and make another one.”

 

“Until then,” Lalna chimed in, “You can keep sleeping on our gurney,” he turned to Xephos, “aren’t you going to offer him any?”

 

“No one else likes my crisps.”

 

“Maybe Dwarves eat butterflys?”

 

“The fuck is a butterfly?” asked Honeydew.

 

“Check it out,” Honeydew was handed a crispy dried leggy thing. It had two wonderful shimmering wings and six legs. “What does it do?”

 

“You eat it,” Xephos said.

 

“It’s a bug that flies around and pollinates flowers” Lalna 

 

Hesitently, the little man put the bug between his teeth and bit down.

 

It wasn’t as bad as he thought. A little tart, but the texture wasn’t…

 

A burning sensation suddenly appeared in the back of his throat. He started coughing and spat the butterfly out in and array of colors.

 

“That’s what I thought.” Xephos said, sadly, sticking another one in his mouth, “C’mon, let’s show you the bedroom.”

 

This room was about as poorly done and shoddy as the furnace room. Each bed looked to be barely holding itself together. The two men didn’t seem to understand that their carpentry looked like it had been done by an eight year old.

 

Their sub-par craftsmanship was consistent throughout the entire cave. Chairs were taped together, the table was just a log with a few planks tied together resting on top. The worst part was their weapons room. They appeared to have used vines to attach bits of stone to sticks. The outdoors wasn’t much better. They were using more sticks as a fence, however, most of them were broken. The roof appeared to be made out of a red-orange stone that had been glued together with the same sap that the furnaces used.

 

“So,” Xephos said, “What do you think?”

 

“Well,” Honeydew said, trying his best to pick and choose his words, “You could definitely use my help.”

 

“What do you mean?” asked Lalna.

 

“Do you know the term ‘good craftsmanship?’”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“You don’t have it.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“So… I could probably fix the base up. Make it look nice and all that.”

 

“I think it looks nice,” Lalna said, looking embarrassed.

 

“Well, the biggest problem is that it’s all going to fall apart. Sap is only a temporary solution. What you really need is to melt down some iron or steel or something and then use that how you used the sap,” explained Honeydew, “ I’ll also need to use one of your swords to spread it over the rocks.”

 

“We _would’ve_ done that but…” Xephos said sheepishly.

 

“We weren’t able to find any metal.”

 

Honeydew looked at the two men standing in front of him in shock.

 

“ _Nutabbtofin—_ ,” Dew muttered.

 

 

“Metal, yeah,” Xephos said, annoyed.

 

 Honeydew walked back into the cave alone and in silence.

 

“I don’t think he’s very impressed,” Lalna said, looking down at his comrade.

 

Xephos turned off his headset and rolled his eyes in response, “Well it’s not like we have the manpower of the entire dwarvern culture. We’re just people.”

 

“And it isn’t like we have a lot of technology at our fingertips yet.” Lalna added, thoughtfully.

 

“It isn’t that ridiculous that we only have this much done already. And besides, we’re offering to take him in and help him with his goal. He really ought to be more polite.

 

“Maybe that’s why he doesn’t have any dwarves with him. They all left him behind while he was asleep and ran off to do more mining.”

 

The two of them stood there for a few more minutes debating the extent of Honeydew’s offenses before Honeydew shouted for them from inside the cavern.

 

 When they entered the “main hall” they were greeted by a large assorted pile of unrefined ores and gems.

 

Honeydew waived his hands with an apologetic look on his face, “I know these are pretty common, but I wanted to get us started as fast as possible. The amber might come in useful for a lamp or something, and the metals we can use to glue together the… Everything,” He looked from the pile of minerals to the two scientists in front of him.

 

“How did…” Xephos tried to say, trailing off.

 

“I can smell the ores in the stone. Can’t you?”

 

“No. No one can. It’s… Not normal for humans,” Lalna said.

 

“I just thought the two of you were useless at mining.”

 

“Well, by dwarf standards...”

 

Lalna looked at Xephos, “I guess this is something to add the list of dwarvern attributes.”

 

Xephos nodded and clapped his hands together, “Alright. So! We need to melt down as much metal as possible to link up the rocks. To do melt the metal, we’ll need a smeltery. For that we need a special type of brick that is extremely resistant to heat and some source of heat. Then we need a way to get the metal out of the smelter and onto the rocks.”

 

“Yeah, we should have it be really big and we can make sweet, sweet tools out of the metal,” Lalna proposed, smiling gleefully.

 

“Aw yeah!” Xephos said, putting on a funny voice, “Now in that case we also need some sort of cast for the tools. For the mix… What are we going to use?”

 

“Oh, oh, we could use some kind of sand-clay mix and then stick that in the tiny furnaces!”

 

“That’s great and all,” Honeydew said, “But where can we fit this? Everything is small. Cramped and all.”

 

Xephos and Lalna simultaneously furrowed their brows.

 

“The furnace room?”

 

“Too low of a ceiling.”

 

“Bedroom?”

 

“Are you joking?”

 

“I don’t hear you suggesting anything.”

 

“Could we do it outside?”

 

“There are spiders outside. Fucking spiders.”

 

Honeydew sighed, resigned to the fact that he was the only doer of the group.

 

“I could dig out a room for it. structurally, it would be best to just widen a cave a little.”

 

The humans present grinned and nodded at eachother. Xephos set his bug jar on the table before scribbling something on his clipboard. Lalna pushed his goggles down over his eyes, removed the gloves form his pocket and slid his slid them over his hands.

 

“Let’s do this!” shouted Xephos.

 

 

 

 

Roughly twenty hours later, the three people had managed to gather enough materials to cobble together a large smeltery. They had each collected a different resource. Lalna was on gravel, Honeydew dug up clay and Xephos had sand duty. As the sun rose on the raw resources in front of the cave, each pile had a suspiciously gatherer-shaped hole.

 

A rooster crowed in the distance.

 

The sand-encrusted head of Xephos popped out of the resource pile.

 

“Guys get up,” Xephos said, brushing the dirt out of his hair. He looked at the other two piles. It seemed that in their exhaustion they had sunk into the piles of grime. He waded out of the sand around him and started kicking the mound of clay mud that Lalna had brought in.

 

“Lalna. Lalna, get up,” a weak moan came from the pile. He kicked the pile again, “Wake up, you drunken bastard.”

 

Lalna slowly sat up, caked with the grey goop he had gathered the night before. He moaned in Xephos’ general direction, rubbing his head as his stood up. The pair walked over to pile of gravel.

 

Once they got close enough, they recognized footprints leaving the mountain of gravel. Xephos wiped the sweat off his brow. He looked at his now-wet hand with confusion. Usually it was a cool temperature in the cave.

 

Suddenly, Xephos recognized a startling smell.

 

“Do—do you smell smoke?”

 

“Uh-huh.”

 

They walked into the next room to find a doorway that wasn’t previously there.

 

“What in the world?” Lalna asked, his first coherent words for the day.

 

Xephos glanced at his partner before putting the back of his hand on the door. Warmth seeped into his hand. Quickly, he removed his coat and wrapped it around the handle of the door, making sure to not burn his hand on what was probably a hot metal doorknob.

 

He was greeted by the sight of Honeydew standing calmly in the center of a room with burning wooden walls.

 

“Hello. I put the heating on,” Honeydew said. He chuckled slightly.

 

Xephos and Lalna stared on in shock, with their jaws firmly planted on the floor.


	3. Plz no

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for how late this is coming out. I've been working on the specifics of character development, and the storyline that comes in much later. So yeah. Enjoy some angry Lew.

The scientists stared at their new partner in a state of disbelief. A large piece of burning wood fell from overhead, hitting the stone floor loudly, and shattering into a mess of embers.

 

“What…” Xephos started, in shock not only due to the fact that the room was on fire, but also the fact that there was an entirely new room.

 

“I dug out a place for the smeltery,” Honeydew said happily, “I hope you don’t mind.”

 

“But why…” Lalna began, “Why is it all…”

 

“It’s a natural way to darken stone. Usually the dwarves would leave the room, but I dunno.”

 

The door to the new room suddenly burst into flames.

 

“Woah,” Honeydew said, drawing out the vowels like a ghost.

 

Xephos suddenly snapped out of his calm stupor, “Quick, Lalna, run and get some water. You too, Honeydew. I’m going to try to do some damage control, before it spreads to the other wooden things in the cave,” The two just looked at him, “Go!”

 

The pair ran off, grabbing their headsets as they exited the cave.

 

Xephos’ voice came in over the headset, “Listen, there’s a lake to the south. Lalna, make sure Honeydew gets there without setting anything else on fire.”

 

They ran to the south, finding a large lake of cool blue water.

 

“Eh,” Honeydew said, “What are we meant to collect it in?”

 

Lalna simply stared into the water and hung his head in shame. “Buckets.”

 

Xephos shouted over the headsets, “ _It’s spreading!_

“We don’t have any buckets.”

 

Xephos came back in over the headset. _“Lalna, your Petunias!”_

 

“True. They’re back at base.” “Plz no!” said Lalna half-urgently, manually spelling out the PLZ.

 

The two looked at each other and ran back to the base. When they got their they found Xephos slapping the burning remains of the wall of chests with a broom that was similarly burning. He noticed them and turned to them with relief in his eyes.

 

“Water! Quick!” He shouted.

 

His hope disappeared when he realized that neither of them were holding buckets. “Where is the fucking water?” He shouted, spit flying unattractively out of his mouth.

 

“It’s back in the lake. We forgot the buckets. How did you not hear that over the intercom?”

 

“The fire is too loud,” Xephos looked sadly at the smoldering pile of chests, “Well now we’re screwed because the buckets were in there.”

 

“That’s ok. We’ll figure it out,” Honeydew said, running his fingers through his beard.

 

Xephos’ blood, similar to the moisture on the walls of the cave, began to boil.

 

“Listen, Honeydew, the situation is quickly getting out of hand, and I—wh—why aren’t you panicking?” Xephos shouted.

 

As Honeydew looked at the burning pile of semi-valubles in the corner, he wasn’t really sure what the problem was. Even more so, when compared to the other two, he wasn’t sure why he didn’t see a problem. He squinted at the flames. “I don’t…I don’t know, I think I kind of like it.”

 

Xephos was flabbergasted. He ran his hands through his hair. He scratched the beard he barely had. He walked over to one of the walls that wasn’t covered in burning wood and leaned his head against the stone. He then turned and slid down the wall, staring at the blaze. He sat for a moment before turning towards Honeydew.

 

“You know I—I was beginning to think,” he said, voice monotone, “that you weren’t so bad. I thought that—that we were starting to maybe work together. Especially since you were giving us tips to make the base better. You were going to be the first one we put on the moon, you know? Lalna kept trying to convince me that I should go, but I’ve seen enough space. I would have had to until you came along. But then I thought ‘I’ll give our newcomer a turn.’ And the help you were giving us… It can’t pay for all this damage you’ve caused.”

 

Somehow this man this—this stranger, really—made Honeydew feel like his internal organs had been ripped out, stomped on by some particularly vicious spiders, and then put back in all in the wrong order. He looked into the flames, still not quite sure what the problem was. He looked at Lalna who simply looked stunned. He followed it by looking at Xephos, who was holding his head in his hands.

 

Honeydew thought back to Xephos’ words. _…all the damage you’ve caused._ Did they really think…

 

“This is all completely fixable. Fixing fire damage is the first lesson we learn. I just need some young trees, wood ash—which we have plenty of—and a few gems. Some water also. It’s a comparatively easy spell.”

 

Xephos raised his head to look at Honeydew. “Magic?” he looked away, “I don’t like magic. It…It’s unnatural. And it won’t put the fire out.”

 

Honeydew was a bit annoyed by this show of doubt. “Putting out the fire,” he said, “will be pretty easy. I don’t know if you two know this but between the surface and the ceiling of the cave is a pool of water. I could channel it onto the fires,” he smiled a little, “if that’s natural enough for you?”

 

Xephos looked away again, somehow simultaneously avoided catching the gaze of Honeydew and Lalna, but also avoided staring at the fire.

 

“Look, we could wait for it to die down, but that could take a while and the restoration spell would require even more of the ingredients. Would you rather have the room filled with fire or water?”

 

Finally Xephos met his gaze, “Tell me where to dig.”

 

“If you’d like,” Honeydew said, pushing Lalna and Xephos towards the door, “you two can play in the dirt outside. It needs too much finesse. A dwarf’s job.”

 

As Xephos and Lalna were pushed out of the cave, Lalna started laughing.

 

Xephos looked at him, incredulous. “Are—are you alright?”

 

Lalna opened his mouth as if he was going to say something, but he doubled over with his laughter. He almost regained his composure before falling to his knees and cracking up again.

 

Xephos couldn’t help but chuckle at his incapacitated friend. “What is it?”

 

At this point Lalna was gasping for air. “It—it’s just,” he laughed again, “what the fuck, man?”

 

Xephos briefly considered this before joining his companion in ridiculous laughter.

 

 

After two hours of waiting, the door opened, and a big cloud of steam and smoke wafted out . The small figure of Honeydew appeared, fanning the smoke away from his face.

 

“Alright, so I cleared a space on the floor for the ritual. I also have enough dry wood ash for the ritual, plus some that I turned into paste for the circles. Is there somewhere flat that we can do this?”

 

They led him to a small clearing with a stone foundation. Xephos and Lalna watched as the dwarf drew seemingly-Arcane symbols on the ground in his wood ash paste. He then moved around the symbols in a circle, smearing the paste as he went.

 

After he had done a complete 360, he wiped his brow and looked to the scientists.

 

“Hand me the things.”

 

Lalna handed Honeydew a bag they had packed, filled with the supplies he had specified.

 

Honeydew organized them all into a seemingly random arrangement.

 

“Do you have a laser or something to light a fire with?”

 

Lalna handed him a flint and steel.

 

Of course they didn’t have a laser yet. They would need to make circuits, and the aluminum-steel…

 

Which could all be made after Honeydew started the spell.

 

He  emptied his canteen over the spell ingredients and the ruind items from the caves, and knelt down to strike the water with the flint and steel.

 

Xephos and Lalna jumped back in shock as the wood ash on the ground, along with Honeydew and their  ruined supplies, were engulfed by a blue-green fire. This eerie blaze lasted for about fifteen seconds before going out and revealing everything, including Honeydew, who had been covered with nicks and bruises from mining, was healed and rejuvenated.

 

Lalna and Xephos just stared at the pile of shiny new gear, which was also the old gear.

 

 

Xephos murmured something that sounding like a thank you, while Lalna released a low whistle. Soon after they both started packing up the gear.

 

Honeydew wasn’t too pleased about all that. He had essential helped avoid a crisis, and all they did was take all of the loot back to their cave.

 

 

 

There wasn’t much talking for the remainder of the evening. After a pork dinner, they all laid down in their poorly built beds and went to sleep.

 

A complaint about their gratefulness had been on the tip of Honeydew’s tounge the whole evening, but now, in the dead of night, wasn’t the time. After the day they had, he managed to just close his eyes, and fall asleep.

 

 


	4. Cooking With Oil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hope it was worth the wait. 
> 
> Today Cin (Kim) was mentioned, along with Jins (Sjin).

Lalna woke up first. His classic morning routine of waking up and preparing a meal was thrown off. Not because of the fire, but because of the move that him and Xephos, not to mention the others had needed to make. Everything that had been in the old base was lost. It had been weeks since he had felt fully in his groove. He took a bucket of water and boiled it over a fire. What he needed was a good stovetop. Maybe an oven. And a freezer. The thing was they needed power, and to get power they needed… Something.

 

Maybe they could use wind power, or solar power, or something to burn.

 

Oil burnt. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but when they were starting out before they had used it, so it wouldn’t be too bad of an idea.

 

He rooted around in the unorganized, unburnt pile to find the box of coffee. Perhaps it was under the gems or something.

 

It wasn’t in the pile.

 

He looked around the cave.

 

In the corner, the coffee was sitting, soaked with water, and charred.

 

He sat back down onto the chair. It collapsed.

 

Honeydew wasn’t lying about the bad workmanship. He tried to reassemble it, but to no avail. The plank that was the seat of the chair had cracked when it hit the ground.

 

He went outside with a cup and his bucket of boiling water. Just outside of the door was a rock, perfect for a bench. He sat there for a while, waiting for the water to cool enough to drink, or for one of the others to wake up.

 

He heard the door open behind him.

 

“Hello, friend.”

 

“Hey Xephos.”

 

“I’m going to write an agenda for today. Want to help?”

 

“Sure.”

 

Xephos started to describe the plan he had semi-formulated after waking up.

 

“We’ll start by mixing together the mix for the bricks.”

 

Lalna nodded, sipping his water, “Bricks-mix.”

 

“Um, sure. Then we should cook them and stack them into smelter form, but…”

 

The entire plan for that day revolved around the smeltery. Xephos went on for a bit talking about how they would construct it.

 

“…so I think that should be all, but—”

 

“Xephos, I’ve been thinking,” Lalna interrupted, “We need some kind of power source. I’m sick of using fire and coal for cooking. Plus, I want to hook up some machines.”

 

“What did you have in mind?”

 

“We could unbox the pump system, refine some oil. Get energy.”

 

“Can you do that?”

 

“Where should I go for the oil?”

 

“I don’t know. Go find some. And bring the GPS. Please.”

 

 

Lalna got up and stretched. He went into the cave to change into his work clothes. As he entered the bedroom, he noticed that all of the beds were empty, not just the ones he and Xephos had been in, but Honeydew’s also. But that wasn’t a problem right then. Chances are they had passed each other and Lalna had been too preoccupied to notice.

 

He started packing his bag with pipes, pumps tanks and refineries. All of the best collapsible equipment had been salvaged from the old base. His pants were uncomfortable, but that was a sacrifice that had to be made for the protection of the leather. He put on his communicator and clipped the GPS onto the headstrap bit. He slipped on his shoes and jacket as he made his way out the door.

 

The sun had risen and the air had warmed up. Lalna rolled his sleeves up, clicked his communicator on, and started walking north. As he walked the environment slowly shifted from plains to a desert, with pools of water, and trees.

 

He pressed the buttonon the back of the GPS and spoke into his microphone.

 

“Note: coordinates X: 317, Z: 900, Y: 5 start of Oasis Biome.”

 

Xephos’ voice came in, “ _I didn’t catch that. Repeat?_ ”

 

“I’ve stumbled across an Oasis. It’s really more of a desert, but it has lakes and palm trees everywhere. It’s neat. Nano would love this.”

_“Who the hell’s Nano?_ ”

 

“The girl that stayed with me at the castle.”

_“What?_ ”

 

 “C’mon, you know her. She was at that one party Sjin threw. She served drinks.”

 

“ _You’re making things up._ ”

 

“Am not.”

 

“ _And she lived with you?_ ”

 

“Yeah.”

_“For how long?”_

 

“Since the party. Almost. Also I’m bringing home some seeds from these trees. I want to grow some.”

 

“ _You always want to grow trees._ ”

 

“For science, Xephos.”

 

Xephos let out a resigned sigh, “ _Fine. But only one. By the way, have you seen Honeydew?”_

_“Reporting for duty, mates.”_ Came the voice of the small man.

 

“Where are you?”

 

“ _In the smeltery room. I’m just putting lava under the floor of it, and then it’ll be done. Where have you two been? Why am I working alone?”_

 

“I’m getting sapli—oil. I’m getting oil.”

_“I’ve been looking for a place to put the—my surprise. For you two. You’ll like it.”_ Xephos said, rambling as to avoid spoiling…

 

Something. Lalna hadn’t heard anything about a surprise until just then.

 

He shook his head, and continued walking. The thing was, he couldn’t. He was stuck. And he was sinking. He wasn’t sinking too quickly. He got up to his knees in quicksand.

 

Suddenly, he was sinking much faster. One might say he was falling.

He combination splatted/splashed into a pool of black mud. The fumes coming off of it hurt his eyes. He moved his goggles down over his eyes and tried to swim out of the weird lake.

 

“Xephos?”

_“What, friend?”_

 

“There’s this weird underground lake thing. It’s filled with black sludge.”

_“Scan it and see what it is.”_

 

“Alright.” Lalna pulled a small device, approximately the size of a satellite phone, out of his pocket and pointed the end towards the goop. “It says it’s quicksand.”

_“Okay?”_

 

“Well, why is it black?”

_“I don’t know. Try again maybe?”_

 

Another second passed.

 

“Now it’s saying it’s oil,” said Lalna, rubbing the back of his head with a stained hand, “Maybe the oil is mixed with quicksand? Maybe I don’t understand.”

 

A sigh came in from over the intercom, _“Well just—fuck, I don’t know. Put down the pump and refiner and get that set up. See if it works. I don’t know.”_

_Thanks for nothing,_ Lalna thought.

 

It took the greater part of an hour to get the hoses and barrels properly assembled and attached. It would have been done sooner, but Xephos was too busy complaining about how Lalna was still off in ‘Oasis Land’ and not back at base helping smelt the ore they had saved. With the flick of the switch the oil started to run through the machine.

 

Or at least it was meant to. The grime was barely moving up the tube.

 

“Xephos it isn’t moving. Okay, it’s kind of moving, but not really,” said Lalna as he examined the sludge.

_“I don’t care! Just—I don’t know—scoop it up with your FUCKING HANDS and JUST BRING IT BACK! Bring me back a few handfulls of oil and I'll SHOVE IT UP MY....ARSE AND THEN WE'LL GO TO SPACE. I don't fucking KNOW! God!”_ came Xephos’ response.

 

Lalna switched his mic off briefly, “well okaaaaay, Mr. Grumpy.”

_“Oh shut up!”_ The microphone was not off.

 

The thing about Xephos—which at the moment Lalna had to remind himself to mention to Honeydew—was that where he came from, most problems were instantly solved with minimal effort. While it was annoying sometimes and took some getting adjusted to, but in addition, Xephos wasn’t one to give up easily. With those combined traits, Xephos saw it fit to make sure everything was perfect, and was always trying to make things run more smoothly and efficiently for the both of them. It usually was only a problem after he had stayed awake for a few days working or wasn’t able to fix something in person.

 

The latter applied to their current situation quite well.

 

“Xephos, what I’m going to do is bring some back and then we can both have a look at it. Alright?”

 

Another sigh came in from over the intercom. _“Fine,”_ said Xephos, exasperated. 

 

 

At dinner that day it was quiet. It had been quiet since after Xephos had yelled at Lalna. Even after they realized that all they needed to do was filtrate the sludge (which was a combination of quicksand and oil) before refining, Xephos hadn’t met eyes with either Lalna or Honeydew, and he had barely touched his grub, and while the other two preferred other food, grub was one of Xephos’ favorite dinners.

 

“Xephos, listen, I understand if you’re still a little mad, but please eat,” said Lalna, gesturing with his fork, “you need as much energy as you can get.”

 

Xephos rolled his eyes.

 

Honeydew quickly finished and ran off to the bedroom as to avoid whatever fight might break out.

 

“Xephos, talk to me.”

 

“I’m not mad. Why are you so understanding?”

 

“What?”

 

“How can you not be mad at me?”

 

Lalna considered that for a moment, “I dunno, I guess I’m just not feeling it.

 

“Yeah,” said Xephos, finally taking a bite of his dinner, “but you were so…” he trailed off, as his eyes seemed to glaze over, and his face turned white.

 

He shook his head. “Never mind. Let’s not talk about it. But in the future, when I’m being a prick, tell me, so I can cut it out.”

 

Lalna briefly imagined—or possibly remembered, like it was a forgotten story he wrote—Xephos with blood running down his face and a dagger stuck through one of his cheeks and out his mouth.

 

Lalna eyed the scar on Xephos’ cheek. “Yeah,” he said, suddenly unsure of himself, “whatever you say.” He looked up and smiled, “Now like I said, you’d better eat your food. I might eat it if you don’t.”

 

“That’s a lie.”

 

“I know.”


	5. Hello Reader. It's Perspective Time.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is much more than you originally thought, reader.

Xephos rubbed his eyes. He hadn’t slept that night, but he had finished the surprise he had been working on for the past three weeks. In that span of time they had gathered up a fair amount of supplies, and greatly improved the base. Xephos had even taught Honeydew how to build a few machines, which was important, because while Xephos was alright at building machines when he had a few special tools, Honeydew could work up a machine with nothing but a hot metal rod and a hammer.

 

They had made an oven, which was a great improvement over cooking food in the same furnace they used to smelt metal or heat the cave at night. Aside from the collection and minor machine production, nothing of note had happened for a long time. It was almost as if excitement, along with everything else, had been on an indefinite hiatus.

 

Xephos had forgotten what he was thinking about. He wet his hair in the bit of water that was now set to run through their cave from an aquafer Honeydew had found.

 

“Lalna, Honeydew, wake up!”

 

There was silence, followed by a distant snore. Xephos walked into the bedroom while loudly banging a stick against the wall.

 

“Wake up!” he shouted again, kicking their beds.

 

“Where’s the second fire?” asked Honeydew as he sat up. His beard was caught in his pants button, and he rolled around bent over himself.         

 

Here’s the thing though. It took so long for Honeydew to wake up, that neither of us want or need to experience it. So instead, we should take a step back, and look at the world. I think that’s a good idea.

 

 

 

Far away, one man is speaking to his friend. He’s an ambitious entrepreneur. His friend, however, is a simple farmer and builder. They are arguing over where to start construction of their new home. They plan to build it above a lake using a dangerous chemical to keep it floating.

 

A woman and her best friend wake up in a pile of wreckage and fire. The woman is stained with a sticky purple liquid. They argue until, and well past when the sun sets, while they find a place to stay the night.

 

Two people, a man, and a woman, die over and over in eachother’s dreams. Nothing makes sense to them. They continue this cycle for what might as well be billions of years.

 

Above the planet, by about sixteen-hundred light years, are two women, travelling a great distance to discover what has become of themselves.

 

Two miners angrily yell at the stones around them, finding eachother hilarious, and designing a rollercoaster.

 

A mutant yells at his two, equally-mutant friends. Everyone is yelling. They throw pebbles at each other, and sing songs about the various things they’re doing. They push each other off buildings and befriend animals. One doesn’t eat. He doesn’t need food.

 

There is a man with a cigar dangling out of his mouth, as he works on a metal lung he plans on putting into his own chest. He relies on himself, and remembers all those who have wronged him.

 

A man explains to a camera on a tripod how to operate machinery. He is lonelier than he lets on. He misses his friend much more than suspected by those who will eventually view the videos.

 

Once more, two men discuss where to put the base. They are haunted and hunted by the people they have burnt. They both survey the surrounding area as one re-calibrates his hand, and checks his friend’s spine for errors.

 

 

A man in a tower starts to construct an airship for mobile magic rituals.

 

A peaceful kingdom of dryads follow their king through the woods and whistle to match the wind.

 

A being with horns lives under a rock near a lake, waiting for the next victim. What she gets surprises her. 

 

A witch and her cousin, a temperamental swimmer are confused and try to explain the recent occurrences.

 

A man is far away from his brother. He is farther away than can be imagined by a mortal mind. But he can imagine the distance.

 

People die. Ordinary people. Like you. Like me, even. But hey. These things happen.

 

 

In other news, Xephos walked up to the big surprise. Honeydew and Lalna looked at each other, astounded by what the man had been able to accomplish by himself.

 

A large wooden airship sat before them, light brown, and in bright purple paint, just along the bow, was written “F. S. Sjips.”

 

“What a strange name for a ship,” commented Honeydew.

 

“It’s…” Xephos said, “It’s named after my nan.”

 

For what might have been the first time, Xephos turned to the two of them with a huge smile on his face.

 

He pushed his coat behind him, and grabbed the wrists of the tall and short men.

 

With a flash in his eyes, he pulled them onboard.

 

As he started the engine and turned the wheel he looked at his two passengers again.

 

Over the hum of the engine and the wind he shouted, “Are you two ready to go exploring?”


	6. The Real Guys, the Best/Worst Guys

“Sure,” said Lalna half-heartedly.

 

Honeydew, elbowed his tall friend in the ribs to get his attention over the noise created by the machines powering the ship. When Xephos looked down, Honeydew pointed off in the direction of a forest.

 

“I want to go this way,” he said, unnecessarily continuing his elbowing.

 

Lewis knocked his small friend’s elbow off its course.

 

“Listen,” he said, glancing down from the sets of levers he was holding, “I’m going. It takes a while to turn.”

 

This did approximately nothing to stop the barrage of elbows. Xephos’ eyebrow became crinkled as he looked at his companion, trying to stay angry and not laugh.

 

“Honeydew, I—” He snorted and pushed him away, “Stop it! That tickles!”

 

This only encouraged him, as he walked forward, wiggling his fingers threateningly and giving an evil chuckle

 

“Knock it off!” cried Xephos, still laughing, using his foot to fend off his small assailant.

 

As the airship ascended, Xephos noted that it quickly became harder to control. Once they got to a good height, he pushed a lever, slowly gauging exactly how fast the airship would move. The onboard weathervane seemed to show that they were being pushed forward by the wind. The scientist silently wished he had a dome with controlled conditions to test it in.

 

Lalna sat at the front of the vessel, making notes on how far they traveled and drew a map as they moved. Though he was a scientist, he still took pride in his artwork, and sort of planned to try to sell some art, or even just start a museum with other peoples’ art. As they flew along, He drew up the many different biomes they passed through.

 

Honeydew, however, was just trying to decide which biome would be the best one to start a mining outpost. So far, they had passed through an area with huge flowers, a space with giant redwood trees, a large field of lava and brimstone, and a rocky expanse with ores jutting out of the surface. At first glance, Honeydew would have picked the one with the obvious ores, but then, after taking into account the pressure that the rocks under the volcano would be under, he decided that there would be more precious gems present there.

 

“Do you hear that?” asked Honeydew, as they were flying over a forest.

 

“Hear what?” Xephos replied, “Oh. That. That’s the missile lock on warning. Put this on. Lalna! Put this on!” he said, handing and throwing a parachute to Honeydew, and Lalna, respectively, “Ok, everyone off. To the right please. Pull your chute at a low point to minimize the opportunities to be shot at.”

 

He walked calmly to the edge of the ship, turned back to them with a look that said _come on, we don’t have all day._ And then swan dived off the edge of the boat.

 

Lalna and Honeydew didn’t really know what to make of this. He had just said that they needed to evacuate due to a missile strike, however, his lack of panic, and his exasperated demeanor made the entire situation seem like it wasn’t important.

 

The beeping noise that signified an oncoming missile sped up. The two of them looked at each other and clumsily jumped off the edge.

 

As Honeydew fell, he heard an explosion from the direction of the airship. Debris fell around him as he tried to squirm his way into copying Xephos’ and Lalna’s body position.

 

He watched as the two of them pulled their chutes about thirty feet from the tops of the trees. When he reached the same height, he followed suit.

 

Xephos pointed to the left, “Glide that way.”

 

A branch clipped Honeydew’s leg. Then his waist, and torso, and then, finally, his face. The same sort of process happened with the other two. After a few seconds of being poked by branches, they were all hanging by paracord from the trees.

 

Xephos let out a roar. “This was the _opposite_ of what I wanted to happen today!” exclaimed the eternally grumpy man, as he kicked his legs in an attempt to get onto the ground.

 

Lalna simply unbuckled his harness and slid through it to the floor, which was only a foot away from where his legs had ended up.

 

“A little help?” requested Honeydew, “I only have tiny dwarf legs.” It was true. He was about an entire length of himself away from the ground.

 

“Oof,” complained Lalna, as he lowered the heavy dwarf, “What have you been eating, rocks?”

 

“Uh, yeah?”

 

This earned a snort from Xephos. “Can, um… Can you help me too? I’m really fucking stuck.”

 

Lalna gave a little nod and reached toward his waist strap, and after trying it for a few seconds, snapped it into two pieces. He then grabbed Xephos by the hips and gracefully lifted him out of the harness. Xephos and Honeydew were both surprised by this display of strength. Lalna pivoted on his heel, and lightly set him on his feet.

 

“Heh, I um…” said Xephos, looking a little embarrassed, but still with a smile, “we uh, we need to keep going this way if we want to find shelter before nightfall.”

 

“How,” began Honeydew, “Do you know this is the right way to go?”

 

“I just…” started Xephos, not making eye contact, “I do.”

 

Though Honeydew couldn’t see his face, he could tell just by the tone of voice that Xephos’ expression had soured.

 

“Did I say something wrong?”

 

“I,” stuttered Xephos, as he turned to look at his dwarf friend, “well, just, no, you, I mean,” he sighed, “You’ll see when we get there.”

 

They walked for about a quarter of an hour. Then the trees stopped. The ground also stopped. In front of them was a platform, hovering above a large hole where a large lake had once been.  Upon the platform appeared to be some basic walls and other structures.

 

An exasperated groan escaped Xephos. He took a few deep breaths. Instead of calming him, however, it was more like blowing onto a fire. He cupped his hands to his lips and shouted in the deepest, angriest voice Honeydew had ever heard.

 

“SIPS!”

 

A voice like gravel mixed with chocolate ice cream drifted out from behind one of the shoddily constructed barriers.

 

“Sorry, no scrubs allowed.”

 

“SIIIIIIIIIIPSSS!” shouted Xephos even louder.

 

A second voice reminded Honeydew of the time Headheaver dared him to eat a lemon like an apple suddenly appeared, generally from the same area.

 

“Yeah, balloon boy, just fly away, why don’t you?”

 

There was a pause.

 

“Oh, wait.”

 

The two people hiding from the group apparently found this hilarious, and burst into thunderous laughter.

 

Honeydew silently tugged on both Xephos’ and Lalna’s sleeves. They looked where he was pointing, and saw a set of stairs leading up to the platform. They walked around, inaudible against the snickering and laughter of the two people on the platform, and started up the stairs.

 

When Honeydew reached the top, he saw two men in matching astronaut onesies. One was stout and had a blue square on his chest, and the other was thin and had a yellow square on his chest.

 

The blue square man had short, almost shaved hair on the sides of his head, and a floof of jet black hair on the very top.  His skin, strangely, was a light gray tone. As he stood up, realizing that there were intruders, Honeydew found that he was only slightly shorter than this small grey man.

 

“Oho no! Sjin! Run!” he said in his choco-gravel voice, pushing his friend off the platform into the water below. He turned around and held up both middle fingers.

 

“Fuck yoooouuuuuuu!” he exclaimed as he attempted a backflip off the platform. He was not so lucky to land in water, and instead, just landed on hard sand.

 

There came an almost demented cackle from the short grey guy.

 

“Shit,” he said, still laughing quite hard, “I think I broke my fuckin’ leg. Sjin! Sjin!” he said, turning to his friend, who had been comfortably splashing in the water, “Swim away! Every man for himself! Leave me behind!”

 

“Nooo! Sips!” Came Sjin’s cry, as he held his wrist to his forehead, purposefully being overdramatic, “I never could! I’ll save you if it’s the last thing I do!”

 

There was a moment of silence.

 

The two strange guys on the floor beneath them doubled over themselves laughing.

 

It lasted for a solid five seconds before Sips wiped a tear away, “Oh my fuckin’ god. But for real, I think I broke my leg.”

 

 

 Once they had helped Sips back on the platform, Xephos brought him into the indoors section and got to tending to his injuries.

 

“Man,” he said, as Xephos was wrapping a splint, “we really got you guys good.”

 

“You shot my fucking airship down!” shouted Xephos in reply.

 

“Pfft, no, how could that have been us.” said Sjin.

 

“The rocket came from this base!”

 

“There are plenty of bases exactly like this maybe,” added Sips.

 

“There is literally a giant stone sign over there that has ‘eat shit Xephos’ pointing at the sky!”

 

“Well, he’s fuckin’ got us there, Sjin.”

 

Sjin was surprisingly tall, slightly taller than Lalna, even. He was lanky enough, that while Lalna was like a big ox, Sjin was built like a bird. He had pointy ears, almost unnaturally so, and soft brown hair. He had a greased mustache/goatee combo, making him look like a classic storybook villain.

 

Xephos sighed, “Listen, here’s the issue. Because you were being dumb, you broke your leg, and now we need a way to get home,” he leaned back to admire his handiwork, and rubbed his forehead, “Here. If you take these your leg should heal faster,” he said, handing Sips a bottle of pills, “Only one a day. ONLY.”

 

“Hey man, once I’m better, I can get you home in a jiffy. This base, uses red matter hover tech. We can just blast off and take you home once I’m better.”

 

“You’re seriously using red matter again?”

 

“I’m out,” said Sjin.

 

“Why the fuck not? It’s a great energy source.”

 

“It’s also great at ending the world.”

 

“It’ll be fine. This time I know what I’m doing.”

 

“Fine. Once you’re better, we’ll head back to our base.”

 

“Deal!” said Sips, holding his fist up, “Big money, big women?”

 

Xephos sighed and bumped fists with Sips, “Big money, big women.”


	7. Xephos the Broken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: mental illness discussed. Also, it may be inaccurate, so if you can send me links and sources to help me write a mentally ill character, that'd be great.

There was something bothering Honeydew about their current situation, and he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. It was almost like he shouldn’t have been worried, but these two men had just fired missiles at them. Xephos and Lalna didn’t seem to care, however. It was like they had done nothing but throw a rock at a shed. He decided to confront Lalna about it while Xephos attended to Sips.

 

“Lalna, I think these guys are maybe… dangerous?”

 

“Ahh, no. Don’t worry about it. They’re just dicks.”

 

“They literally shot missiles at us.”

 

“Well,” said Lalna, scratching behind his ear, “It’s just, you’re right, but they’re nice once you get to know them. Like Sjin, right,” he continued on, “He threw this big party for us last winter, and helped us with our farming.

 

“Sips isn’t very helpful, but he repays his debts. We gave him some help with a sorting system once, and he sent us thirty pounds of his flavored dirt. I still don’t know why he makes that stuff, but Sipsco stays in business, so I figure it must be selling ok. You watch, he’s gonna come out here and tell us he’s giving us a ride back. Plus something for fixing the broken leg.”

 

Honeydew still wasn’t satisfied. He was making excuses that actually made Honeydew like them more, but it still didn’t fix the fact that Xephos hadn’t cared when there were oncoming missiles.

 

“So, what about Xephos?”

 

“What? You know him well enough.”

 

“I don’t know if I do.”

 

“Explain what you mean.”

 

“Well,” Honeydew began, “he was so passive when the ship went down. Later it was like he cared more about the ship falling than the threat of death. Is he, you know,” Honeydew finished, gesturing at his temple, “alright?”

 

Lalna let loose a long exhale. His carefree expression slid off his face as he leaned against one of the ramshackle, “He’s been through,” he hesitated, “a lot. On one hand he’s kind of a child. He’s more worried about people breaking his toys than the actual life and death implications. Sometimes I think, though, that at one point he just stopped caring about what was real and instead just focused on cool stuff he could do. Stopped caring about the worth of himself and others. Put what he’ll leave behind before anyone’s happiness now. It’d be easy you know. I think about that sometimes after I stop worrying about him. How easy it’d be to join him in that mentality.

 

“But,” he said, deep in thought, “Then we’d die. Someone has to be there to take care of him. I’m just glad he likes bugs. Sometimes all he eats for a week are the random bugs he finds.

 

He stopped momentarily, stood up straight, and brushed his sleeve below his eye, “Sorry. Umm, yeah. And as for me, the carefree life just rubs off on you after a while. You’ll probably start up too. There’s no easier way to travel than not worrying which direction you’re heading,” after seeing the unconvinced look on Honeydew’s face, his voice and expression became harder, “listen, Sips and Sjin know Xephos. Possibly better than I do. They know what he’d prepare for. Now can you just, not worry about it?”

 

The door in between the outside and the inside of the skyraft opened. The short man with the pale gray complexion looked around like he was annoyed. “What am I interrupting some lovers spat? Goddam it, Xephos, tame your gays.”

 

Xephos screwed his face up like he was stifling a laugh, but simultaneously pissed off. As Sips and Sjin walked off to start preparations for driving the gang back to their home, Xephos turned to Lalna and Honeydew.

 

“So, the deal is they’re going to fly us back to our base. Also Sips gave me an IOU one first aid training lesson coupon. I’m still not sure if that was a way to throw shade or if he was actually trying to help. Also,” he said, looking directly at Lalna now, “the way this is staying in the air is red matter propulsion. They say they have it all under control, but last time they had it under control…” he trailed off, and gestured around them.

 

“So, bottom line, do you have the device?”

 

Lalna looked around nervously, “Uh, yeah I do.”

 

“Good, good. I’ve convinced them to let you design and build the engine. Remember, they aren’t dumb, just lazy. If they start to think something is wrong, we’re not getting home. You need to convince them that the machine is important to help it all run, so that they don’t ask questions if they see it in the engine. You also need to make it go off when they’re well away from our house. We don’t want squatters.

 

“Honeydew, you need to go collect some ore. See if you can avoid them while you work. Believe me, you won’t get anything done if you try to communicate with them while you try to work. I’ll do proper introductions at dinner tonight.”

 

“Xephos, you big, dumb babby, come help me disconnect this godforsaken thing from the ground,” shouted Sips from the staircase they had climbed up.

 

“I’m coming,” Xephos shouted in reply. Quieter, to Lalna, he hissed, “Don’t mess this up,” before running off to join the weird duo.

 

 


	8. Dinner with Schmucks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> so srrs

After a day of some of the easiest digging he ever had, he made his way to the surface and found it was night. He entered the room on the top of the strange little island, and dropped the bags of goodies he had collected.

 

“Were you born in a fuckin’ barn, man? Close the goddam door,” came Sips’s voice from the table that had been set up.

 

Reluctantly, Honeydew went over to the slab of wood leaning against the wall and moved it back over the hole representing the doorway.

 

He sat down at the table to find a stack of pork chops on his plate. Everyone had the same spread in front of them, except for Xephos, who also had a smaller tray of various beetles, and Sips, who had a bottle of beer in front of him along with everything else.

 

“I don’t think I’ve made any formal introductions,” said Xephos, fulfilling his promise, “Honeydew, this is Sips, and Sips, this is Honeydew. He’s a dwarf.”

 

Sips looked amused and astounded, “You can’t fuckin’ say that. They’re little people!” he turned to Sjin, “look at this rude-fuckin-dude.”

 

“Super fucking rude, Sips,” nodded Sjin, perched in his chair like some great bird, leaning toward Sips, as if to hear him better.

 

“No,” said Xephos, exasperated, “Like a literal, diggy diggy hole dwarf. Like in those books I leant you.”

 

“Oh,” said Sips, leaning back in his chair, “Ok. And about those books, some zombie got ahold of them and just started shoving them up another zombie’s ass. You don’t want them anymore,” a thoughtful look appeared on his face, “You know Sjin, I think one of those zombies was your mom.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Yeah! And come the think of it, I think the other one was your mom, Xephos.”

 

Xephos, while he was still smiling, twitched slightly. He sighed, put his fork down, and placed his hands on the table, He looked up at them and said, “Which one was receiving and which one was giving?”

 

“Oh it was definitely Sjin’s mom receiving. I am insanely familiar with Sjin’s mom’s ass.”

 

In an attempt to end this particular topic of discussion, Honeydew spoke up, “So, I hear you’re in the business of flavored dirt?”

 

Sips’s eyes brightened, and he suddenly became much more animated than before, “Oh yeah! Sipsco CEO and founder!” he handed Honeydew a business card. At the top was his name, and then at the bottom, an address was scribbled out. In its place in red pen were the words, ‘big fuckin island in the sky. can’t miss it.’ This guy swore a little too much for Honeydew.

 

“And you’re a full on Tolken- _The Hobbit_ -style dwarf. So do you guys actually live in a huge mountain kingdom and you’re just a fuckin anomaly or what?”

 

“Well,” Honeydew said, “I wanted to go to space, and they didn’t. There was a big deciding ceremony and then, when they decided against it, they threw me out.”

 

“Huh,” Sips said, leaning back again, gesturing with his beer bottle “You know, you’re the only person I’ve ever met smaller than me. At first I was all like ‘oh, great, someone even shorter than me, howabout that,’ but I mean, you’re actually normal as far as dwarfs come, I assume.”

 

Honeydew nodded, and Sips’s eyebrows suddenly creased, “You know, I didn’t offer you a beer. You want one?”

 

“Not if you need to make a special trip,” replied Honeydew.

 

Sips shook his head and shook his hand as if he could brush the idea away, “No, no, I just finished mine anyway. Like I say, ‘any excuse for a fourth.’”

 

Sjin shrugged and said, “Ol’ Sipsy can drink with the rest of them. Liver of stone, he’s got.”

 

“Jeez, Sjin, it’s titanium, get it right,” responded Sips as he walked back from the crate of beer in the corner. He set a bottle down next to Honeydew, who took a sip.

 

“It’s got an earthy flavor,” he said, immensely enjoying the strange taste.

 

“You bet your ass it does,” said Sips proudly, “the finest Sipsco Dirt Beer! Strongest beer you’ll lay your fuckin hand’s on. That’s the official slogan too.”

 

“Almost as strong as red matter,” Xephos said, picking through his bug pile.

 

“Oh, Xephos, don’t taint the conversation with this, I’m trying to have a nice dinner here,” said Sips. When Xephos didn’t stop silently toying with his dinner, Sips spoke up again, “Listen, we’ve been through this. Sjin and I, we’ve developed a way to contain all the energy in the engine.”

 

“Do you have any idea how much force it takes to keep this island in the air? Like, at least 400 newtons,” said Lalna, speaking up.

 

“Yeah, exactly 456.25 newtons, why?” asked Sjin.

 

“That’s 456.25 newtons constantly escaping the engine. And if the engine was to break somehow, that red matter could be released like a nuclear explosion.”

 

“Look, it’ll be fine! We can just start over again if we really need to,” said Sips. With that, almost as if no one could come up with an argument, everyone shut up. Sips leaned back in his chair once more, looking tired.

 

“You know,” he said, looking at Xephos, “this is why our fuckin marriage is in shambles.”

 

Honeydew looked at the two of them, and at Sjin, who was practically clinging onto the arm of the smaller man.

 

“Wait,” Honeydew said, “are you two—“

 

Xephos cut him off, while cutting another slice off a pork chop, “Sips has a rare disease where he has a completely straight face, even when he thinks he’s being hilarious,” he stuck a piece of pork into his mouth, “For example, this one time, we got into some trouble when we were at this one bar and…”

 

With this change in topic, the night went on without another mention of the red matter or any other arguments. At last everyone had gone to bed, and it was only Sjin and Honeydew left.

 

“So,” said Honeydew, trying to figure out where to put his dishes, “is it always like this with him?”

 

“Well, he’s usually quieter, but yeah, it’s all the same. He just thinks he has to speak up when there’s more people around.”

 

“Just so you know, they mean well.”

 

“With the whole red matter thing?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Ah, I know. It took some convincing on Sips’s part to get me to go along with it, but we’ve got it under control.”

 

“Oh sure. I don’t know much about all this stuff. Speaking of which, what happened ‘the last time?’”

 

“Sips and I managed to make a red matter bomb so we could do some mining. It ended up that we had to leave the planet. It destroyed the entire freakin’ world.”

 

Honeydew was shocked into silence. Now he saw why Lalna and Xephos were so worried. Also, it explained some of the other things they had said.

 

“So,” said Honeydew in an attempt to keep the conversation moving, “none of you are from here then?”

 

“Nah. We’re from Tekkoria. At least, most of us are. I don’t really know where Xephos came from. That’s not to say that he wasn’t there with us, but one day, he just kinda showed up.”

 

Honeydew considered this.

 

“Wait, what do you mean most of you?”

 

“Oh, you know, Nano, Rythian, Zoeya, Lomadia, Nilesy, Strife, Parv, Inthelittlewood. Have you met them yet? No? Oh, they’re a blast. Well, not so much Rythian, he’s too quiet. Parv’s rituals freak me out a little, but he’s still an A+ member of our little community.”

 

“How’d you all get here then? A ship or…”

 

“We used magic books. You ask Xephos, and he’ll insist it’s a science, but I always think that magic becomes science when you start to understand it,” he rubbed his eyes here, “you can mechanize just about anything. Hey, I’ll shoot the shit more with you in the morning. I have to sleep.”

 

Honeydew silently agreed and they both went to their beds. Sjin slept like a baby.

 

Honeydew, however, did not.

 

 


	9. Bamboozling the Boss/The Revenge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Guys work to get home and simultaneously rid their two friends of the red matter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @the person who said they liked how I was handling everything:
> 
> Do you like how I'm handling the updates?

“This is the piston here,” said Lalna, explaining his design for the engine, “It’s shaped that way to channel the energy it realeases straight back and pushing us forward.”

 

“That’s all real fuckin great and all,” piped up Sips, “but how fast will it go?”

 

“Oh, about 25, 30 kilometers per hour, at best,” said Lalna casually.

 

“What?” Sips said, outraged, “my grandmother drives faster than that! Can’t we do something to speed it up?”

 

“Well, I do have a plan,” Lalna said, “but it’s risky. I haven’t tested it yet.”

 

“Fast, risky, and untested sounds like my kind of party, Sips,” Sjin said.

 

“Yeah…” Sips said, briefly silent, “So, how does it work?”

 

“Ok, what do you know about quantum physics?”

 

“I know it exists.”

 

“So fifty-three years ago, Nevor Mendola discovered that-”

 

Sips folded his hands in front of his face in a display of mock patience.

 

“Lalna, I like you, so I’m going to make you a deal. I won’t ask questions about how this thing works, if you promise to never try to explain to me the history of quantum physics.”

 

“Sounds good. Anyway, it’s essentially a capacitor that can up to quadruple the speeds we can travel.”

 

“Those are the kinds of numbers I like to hear. That’s, what seventy miles per hour?”

 

“Roughly, yeah. A Little more, I think. The capacitor will channel the energy from the red matter away from the hover engines back to the rear thrusters.”

 

“So we need to hook that up.”

 

“Yeah, we’ll need some angmallon. It’s a special type of metal that Honeydew can whip up,” he explained after seeing the confused looks on their faces.

 

“Frankly,” said Sjin, “I’m surprised that you all are ok with using the redmatter to keep us moving. You know, since you seemed so against it last night.”

 

Lalna creased his brow. “Well I don’t see any other ways to fuel it. Unless you want to spend time getting oil.”

 

“Fine. Just build the thing, Lalna.”

 

 

Later that week, Lalna had just finished installing the engine. He wiped the sweat off his forehead, and looked at his handy work. He had done a pretty good job, he thought. It would not only get them home, but also get rid of the red matter component.

 

He went over to where the others were and told them he had finished.

 

“Good. Let’s head out right now!” Xephos said, not only ready to get back to their cave, but also get rid of the red matter.

 

“No, don’t be ridiculous!” said Sips, “Stay the night so we can feed you some dinner. Get some rest, and we’ll leave in the morning.

 

“Alright,” said Xephos hesitantly, “But we leave first thing in the morning. I don’t want to impose on you.”

“Don’t worry about it you big bastard. Just go and get some eggs and I can make us breakfast-for-dinner omelets,” Sips replied.

 

Dinner went smoothly, with lots of conversation, mostly from Sips, with interjections from Sjin. Honeydew excused himself when they started discussing molecular deconstruction versus cold fusion as energy sources.

 

Honeydew, though he didn’t understand the conversation did enjoy listening to their voices from the other room as he rinsed his plate off. All of a sudden he realized two things. The first was that he barely knew these people. The second was that they were still better friends to him than anyone he had known in the dwarf kingdom. They were all misfits, and therefore, they all fit in together. He went off to bed and went to sleep in his hammock slung up outside.

 

 

 

 

“Those rat bastards. I told you Sjin. I fucking told you.”

 

“You did.”

 

“I can’t believe they thought they could pull a fast one on us. What do they think we are, stupid?”

 

“Keep your voice down, you might wake them up.”

 

“You know, I have half a mind to just leave ‘em here and take off ourselves.”

 

“Will you?”

 

A sigh, “A deal is a deal Sjin. We blew them, we take them home. But let’s disconnect it. Let Lalna know tomorrow that his ‘capacitor’ wasn’t necessary.”

 

“Good idea Sips.”

 

“Don’t you think I fuckin know that?”

 

“Probably.”

 

“Jesus, Sjin.”

 

“I know Sips.”

 

 

 

The next morning, they all took off in their amazing new flying machine. It was quiet, which was a first around Sips. It was unnerving, seeing his face motionless.

 

“Sips?” Xephos said, attempting to make sure he hadn’t died and instantly gone into rigermortis.

 

“Hmm?” The much smaller man said, steering the craft.

 

“You alright?”

 

“Oh yeah, just thinking.”

 

A long pause ensued.

 

“Oh, by the way, Lalna, I took a look at your designs. Turns out that capacitor wasn’t necessary. In fact, it runs at about seventy miles per hour just on coal. It’s not the most efficient, but I thought you’d be more comfortable if we didn’t use the red matter.”

 

Lalna’s face drained of blood, “Oh-oh yeah? That’s interesting.”

 

Xephos cut him off with a more commanding tone of voice.

 

“That is pretty interesting. I’m a little surprised that he didn’t catch that originally. Did you keep it in?”

 

 

Sjin spoke up this time.

 

“Oh no, we had to take it out. We weren’t able to get the coal in with it in the way. It got a little crushed when we tried to take it out though,” he reached into his pocket and fished out a deformed metal object, “Here. If you think you can fix it, have it.”

 

“I appreciate the thought,” Xephos said in a calm, yet forceful voice, taking the object from Sjin.

 

Though the airship was now quiet, the silence was as loud as a war. Xephos’ strong, straight-ahead gaze forcefully indicating that he didn’t hold a single ounce of guilt, and Sjin and Sips’s accusatory glances not giving any doubt that they knew that the gang’s plan was.

 

It remained in this sorry state of affairs until they got back to the cave.

 

The three of them, Lalna, Honeydew, and Xephos, got off the airship without saying a word. Behind them, Sips sighed.

 

“Listen up you three. We know what you were trying to do and you know that. Just… come by for dinner if you get a new airship. We won’t shoot you down this time. I promise.”

 

Xephos’ expression softened as he turned to face the two pseudo spacemen. He gave them a smile.

 

“It’s a deal,” he said, shielding his eyes from the setting sun, “Listen, you’ve done all this for us. Do you want to stay the night? We probably have food. I promise I won’t try to take down your ship.”

 

“Do you guys have beer?”

 

“No.”

 

“Well, what kind of guest would we be if we didn’t bring anything to dinner?” Sips said, grabbing one of the various crates of alcohol from the deck, and moving into the cave. They had another good night of conversation, and in the morning, Sips and Sjin got back onto their ship. Apologies were once again exchanged, and then Xephos, Lalna, and Honeydew watched as they grew to be nothing more than a speck on the horizon.

 


	10. Linkbook to the Past

Now that it was just the three of them, Honeydew wanted to bring up something that had been bothering him.

 

“Xephos,” he said, “you two said you were new around here. And then I talked to Sjin and he said you all used books to get here. How does that work?”

 

“Well it essentially harnesses tachyon energy to move you through space. The ink, when it’s in the machine that stirs it to the right consistency, takes a special combination of materials and imbues the ink with the tachyon harnessing properties,” Xephos explained in a matter-of-fact voice.

 

“How does that work?”

 

“I’m,” Xephos said, less sure sounding, “I’m thinking it has to do with a chemical reaction between tachyons and the ink. But I haven’t been able to record any data on that part of the process.”

 

“Do you still have the machines?” Honeydew asked hopefully.

 

“Ehhrrm, no. But it’s easy to make. Essentially, we just need ink, salt, a book, a bowl, and a spoon. We have most of that in the kitchen, and I have a bunch of unused journals. I always thought I would start a diary, but now look.”

 

The process was as simple as Xephos described.

 

“So,” he said, “now all we have to do is dip a page from the notebook in ink and wait a second. Then, there’ll be some runes on it. Press your thumb to it, you’ll feel a prick and be on a different planet.”

 

“How is this safe?” Honeydew asked, nervously.

 

“Oh, it automatically chooses one that has oxygen and is approximately the right temperature,” Lalna added.

 

“How?”

 

Lalna wiggled his fingers and grinned, “Magic!”

 

Xephos sighed, frustrated, “No it’s science. We just haven’t figured out how it works yet. Oh!” he said, handing Honeydew a second book, “This is a linkbook. It’ll get you home. You just write ‘home’ on a page in ink to have it take you back to wherever you wrote it. Make sure you always have one before you leave.”

 

Honeydew started to get suspicious.

 

“You know, it sounds a lot like you’re seeing me off.”

 

“Um, yeah. Don’t worry though. You can tell us about what you find through the headset,” he patted Honeydew on the back, “Off you go.”

 

Hesitently, Honeydew pressed his thumb to the page. Xephos was correct about the jab on his finger. He put it in his mouth to suck on it. There was a speck of blood right on his finger. He looked up, ready to tell off the two taller men.

 

In front of him was a brown, gray, and olive green landscape. The sky was a dim reddish color. A weird creature walked by. It was strange and looked impossibly contorted. It had a snout with teeth hanging out, like an alligator’s, except it was a strange S shape.

 

It snorted at him and wandered off to eat what Honeydew could only assume was a type of grass.

 

He clicked the headset on.

 

“You know, the page thing might have been painful, but you two, without a doubt, are the real pricks here.”

 

Lalna’s voice could be heard over the intercom.

 

“ _Oh. We were kinda worried you were dead. Next time click your headset on before you leave.”_

 

“Yeah, real fucking great. I’m stuck here with the acrobat crocodile and you two are just sitting with your thumbs up your asses, thinking I was dead.”

_“Acrobat crocodile?”_ Xephos said, questioningly.

 

“Yeah some weird bent-out-of-shape thing. I think it’s an herbivore.”

_“So it’s safe then? Do some digging around. See if you can find anything good.”_

 

Xephos, practical as usual.

 

“Arright. I should have brought a weapon.”

 

“ _Yeah, that’d probably have been a good idea,”_ said Lalna, “ _you have your pickax though. If something gets too close, swing that at ‘em._ ”

_“Listen, you’re there now. Just find out as much as you can and come back when you get hungry.”_ Xephos said in reply.

 

Honeydew almost mentioned that he was already hungry, but something told him Xephos just wanted him home in time for lunch. He sighed and stretched before swinging his pick at the hard dirt floor.

 

 

 

It was after lunch. They had all eaten sandwiches while going through the various different ores Honeydew had found. Suprisingly, it was a lot of the same stuff they could find right there.

 

Since Honeydew had been the one to explore it, they gave him the honor of naming it. _Sludgeland,_ Honeydew had decided on.

 

“Ok,” Xephos said, “While you were away, I found some old pages we had discarded when we were trying to find a good match for a planet. These have special runes Lomadia was able to decipher, and they each mention a different biome. Like, uh…” he flipped through the pages, “Ah! This one is supposed to be oasises.

 

“Oasis-is-is-is-is,” Lalna said.

 

“Um, sure. So, I’ll work up a new linkbook, and tape this page into the Book of Worlds. That’s what we’re calling the notebook with all the different pages now. The Book of Worlds. You should be able to get back out in, like, thirty minutes, max.”

 

“Woah, woah, hold on,” Honeydew said, indignant, “I did the last one. Surely one of you two should do this.”

 

“Well, thing is,” Lalna said, “We aren’t flame retardant. You appear to be, after that fire.”

 

“How about this, you check to see if it’s safe, and then we’ll come over after,” Xephos said, hoping to satiate the dwarf.

 

Honeydew sighed.

 

“Fine.”

 

 

Xephos and Lalna watched as Honeydew disappeared from right in front of them. They heard his voice over the intercom.

 

“ _Well, I’m in a cave. It’s a little warm, but it seems safe.”_

 

Lalna was the first one to start to move to the book. He pressed his finger to the page, and similarly warped out of the cave.

 

“ _SHIT I’M ON FIRE!”_ came Honeydew’s voice, leaving a ringing in Xephos’ ears.

 

 

 

Xephos did not move toward the book. In fact, he left the little area they had set up for making and using linkbooks, in case they teleported back. He did not want to end up inside either of them.

 

“What’s going on over there?” He asked, hoping that they hadn’t died.

 

“ _Well, it’s not an oasis, I can tell you that much mate,_ ” Honeydew said, “ _I think that we must be too close to the sun or some shit. We can’t go outside. OW! Fuck, what the hell?”_

 

“What is going on?” Xephos repeated.

 

This time it was Lalna’s voice in Xephos’ ear.

 

“ _There appears to be some kind of grey goo rapidly encrusting the cave. Also, it appears to be acidic._ ”

 

“Is Honeydew ok?”

 

“ _He’s bleeding. Quite badly as well.”_

 

“Um, ok. Fuck,” Xephos looked around for something to use to treat his wound, “Get him back here as soon as possible. Is it deep?”

 

“ _Nah, just wide. Quite the gash, and it’ll scar, but I’ll be fine. Takes a little more than that to take a dwarf down,_ ” said Honeydew, “ _and Lalna was the one who responded ‘cause I turned my headset off and started screaming out as many curse words as possible._ ”

 

“Um, right. Well, just get back here ASAP. I want to make sure you don’t get an infection.”

 

 

Aside from the pain, it looked like the injury was akin to a severe jellyfish sting.

 

“So, do you want to name this one too?” Lalna asked, as Xephos wrapped an old shirt around Honeydew’s forearm.

 

“Yeah. Hell, probably. Like it should be called ‘Hell, Probably.’ I feel like that’d be fitting. Also, I’m going to build a library for all of these different books. Then we won’t accidentally go to this place ever again.”

 

 

Xephos had figured that they had enough time before they should eat dinner to try out another world. Honeydew phased into existence on this new planet, unsure of what he’d find.

 

He definitely wasn’t expecting this.

 

“Well,” he said, “It’s safe. It’s also pretty FUCKING WEIRD.”

 

The other two adventurers warped to the planet’s surface. The found themselves on a small stone island surrounded by waist high water. There were large spheres floating in the sky, colliding and bouncing off each other. The weirdest part though, were the huge black protrusions sticking up from the ground.

 

“So I’m not crazy, right? Those are huge black dicks.”

 

“Um, yeah. That sounds about right,” Xephos agreed.

 

“I nominate the name ‘Ball and Purnis Land’ for this world,” commented Lalna.

 

Xephos started wading through the water, and taking stock of what was around them.

 

“Ok, so there are low moons. Perhaps the gravity is lower here? Or…no that wouldn’t work, we’d be floating. Maybe there’s some kind of magnetized material inside of them that is repelling them away from the surface. That makes sense. Yeah. Also some water that comes to about a meter off the ground. I wonder if there’s something inside of the,” he paused, “columns? Sure, columns.”

 

“I thought we decided they were dicks.”

 

“That’s not scientific enough,” he said turning to Honeydew, “I need you to whack off one of the dicks.”

 

“What?” Honeydew said, incredulous.

 

“You know, take your pick and just swing at it.”

 

“I’m uncomfortable with your phrasing.”

 

“Jesus Honeydew, just take your pick and fucking slam it! Beat it off with your bare hands, I don’t care! If your lungs are strong enough, fucking blow it down. I just want to see what’s inside.”

 

“Are you sure you don’t realize what you’re saying?”

 

“What? I just want that dick. Chopped down. For Science. Is that too much to ask?”

 

“You’re fucking with me,” Honeydew said, before walking over to one of the large black pillars. He climbed to the top in an attempt to get a better angle. When he reached the top, he looked at Lalna and Xephos. Lalna appeared to be silently dying of laughter, whereas Xephos looked 100% serious.

 

“Go on. We don’t have all day,” Xephos said.

 

Honeydew hoisted his pick in the air and swiftly brought it down in the middle of the member. Suddenly, a hot white liquid shot from the hole.

 

Lalna could no longer contain himself and started guffawing.

 

“ _Now_ you’re just _fucking_ with me,” Honeydew said, as it sprayed up in the air and came down onto him.

 

“Oooooh,” Xephos said, “Now I get it. Heh. Yeah, I can’t believe I didn’t catch what I was saying. Oh my god.”

 

Honeydew inhaled through his nose, careful not to get any in his mouth. It was a smell he was familiar with.

 

“Wait a second, this is fucking molten diamond.”

 

“You’re shitting me,” Lalna said, down on his knees in the water, heaving with laughter.

 

Honeydew wrapped himself the dick and slid down fireman’s-pole style. The diamond hissed as the steam came off of it. He pried it off of his belly and forehead. “Boys, we’re fucking rich!” he said excitedly.

 

Behind Xephos came the voice of Lalna, hid head just barely out of the water with how hard he was laughing.

 

“That’s not the only thing we’re fucking!” he barely got out before full on collapsing onto the bottom of the huge, dick-filled ocean.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not sure I like the way it ends?
> 
> ????


	11. Lalna's Shit World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Owch

The next morning, Honeydew and Lalna woke up to Xephos asleep on the floor of the cave, surrounded by papers and empty coffee mugs. They had coffee and eggs while they waited for him to wake.

 

Xephos woke up about an hour after them, and almost immediately started gathering papers and carrying them outside. Lalna and Honeydew looked at eachother and followed him out.

 

In front of them was a twenty-two-foot sloop equipped with a balloon for above ground travel. There were harpoons on either side of the bow and one in the back near the controls.

 

Honeydew walked towards it and ran his hand across the wood.

_“The Starrunner”_ read the painted-on label.

 

There was a rope ladder hanging off the edge of the ship. Lalna was already ascending to go onto the deck.

 

“Which part of your ass did you pull this out of?” Honeydew asked.

 

“It was a backup. I like to be prepared,” said Xephos, “So, what you need to do is go to that machine, and pull the lever. Those crystals channel the energy that the books already have into a portal we can send this airship through. Arrgghh!” He shook his hands in front of his face, and grinned, “okokokokok. Gogogogo! I can hardly wait. Ok. You have to check it out before we send this through.”

 

Honeydew reached the lever that operated the portal and turned back to look questioningly at Xephos. Xephos had pulled out some form of plastic blast shield, holding a thumbs up over the edge of it. Hesitantly, Honeydew grasped the lever and activated the portal.

 

 

 

It quietly hummed to life with the subtle whirr of a magical device. The hairs on the back of his neck and arms. A blue incandescent haze was cast in the middle of the portal.

 

“Arright. Heading through now,” Honeydew said, centering himself with a deep breath.

 

“Okay, good. Come back, please.”

 

“No Problem.”

 

He stepped through the portal. There was a few seconds of silence. A bird flew out of the portal. Honeydew stuck his head back through.

 

“I wouldn’t even bother with the ship, to be honest. Just come in and see it yourself.”

 

Lalna and Xephos got out of the ship and walked through the portal.

 

They walked into a cave. It was not a nice cave. Rocks were falling from the ceiling. There was a liquid of some description running backwards up the walls, hissing and sizzling, and melting the rock. It hit a plant, igniting it. A platform with a single tree growing from it collapsed and fell into the lava pooling below.

 

Xephos let out a slow breath. Suddenly, he changed from anything Honeydew had ever seen. He lowered his shoulders and leaned against the edge of the portal. He seemed smaller than usual. Usually he was puffed up with either excitement or anger. He was even tensed when asleep.

 

Even Lalna seemed to notice a change. Honeydew opened his mouth in an attempt to speak, only to be waved silent.

 

After an excruciating ten minutes of silence Xephos cleared his throat, “Next book.” He turned on his heel, and walked back through the portal. On the other side, Xephos waited for the other two to get through and stuffed the book into his back pocket. He pulled out a new one, and forced it into the book slot. He pulled the lever again and ushered Honeydew back through.

 

“Alright, bring the ship.”

 

As they pulled the ship through, Xephos was welcomed into a warm forest. Crystals littered the landscape under the trees.

 

“Lalna,” said Xephos, turning to his taller teammate, “You take notes on the landscape from the sky. Make sure your communicator is on. Honeydew and I will look around for anything useful.”

 

Under the trees, Honeydew and Xephos found many things, but the real treasure was the friendship they gained from their time together. Also, gemstone mosses growing on trees, more portal crystals, and large mushrooms with hollow interiors and holes on four sides.

 

Soon enough, the sun started to set.

 

“Lalna. Come in Lalna,” Xephos said, hand to his headset, “Can you come pick us up at the clearing at X cord 93.22 and Z cord -144.91? The height is 23 meters above sea level.”

 

“Yep. Still here. Got all that. On my way. It looks like… I can be there in an hour.”

 

“An hour?” Xephos said, glancing around the quickly darkening woods nervously, “It’s already hard to see out!”

 

“Hard to see out. Yeah, yeah, but I’m far away. You’ll have to hold out for a while. I think you’ll be happy with the information I’ve gathered though. Very thorough.”

 

Xephos let out a deep sigh, filled with a mix of disappointment, relief, and gratitude, “Alright, thanks Lalna. I’ll see you in a bit. Our headsets are running low on charge. We’re going to save it for emergencies.

 

 

The two of them arrived at the clearing. Xephos began to put down torches, and Honeydew began to dig a hole in the ground and build rudimentary walls out of the stone, dirt, and gravel from the ground. As the sky erupted in orange, red and purple, Xephos and Honeydew could just barely see creatures moving in the darkness of the treeline. The crashing sounds coming from the woods were starting to worry Honeydew, and he said as much to Xephos.

 

“Well,” Xephos started, his voice in his now-easily-identifiable teacher-mode, “Statistically speaking, most creatures come out right before nightfall, especially the herbivores. Like deer. Have you seen a deer?”

 

“Maybe?”

 

“Let’s head to the edge of the woods and see if there’s anything there like a deer.”

 

“Aren’t we on a different planet? How would there be deer?”

 

“Well, this planet is really similar to the one we came from. Most of the flora so far has evolved similarly, it doesn’t seem like too much of a stretch that something like a deer would evolve.”

 

The sun got lower. Honeydew and Xephos got closer to the treeline. In the shadows was a shape. A moving one at that. Honeydew stood very still, breathing hard, simply out of fear and simple self-preservation. Xephos however stood so still he almost disappeared, like a tree or a statue that one wouldn’t take a second look at.

 

Honeydew shifted his weight uncomfortably. A twig snapped under the new pressure provided by his left foot. A new shape, presumably the first shape’s head popped up. With that, Honeydew stopped moving. He became like Xephos, calm and still. The shape in the forest did too.

 

Next, it started moving toward Honeydew, head low, shoulders high. As it came farther into the light, it was revealed to be a short creature, three feet tall at the shoulder, and four where the neck ended. It was covered in short oily feathers, and a long snout ending in a short round beak. Long ears stuck out from either side of it’s head, facing in different directions. Just behind that was a pair of antlers, shaped like a carpenter’s saw, and sticking up and back It’s four legs moved slowly and decidedly, choosing parts of the ground that helped it move with nearly imperceptible sound. It stuck a long blue tough out, and licked Honeydew’s cheek and jaw. A snicker could be heard from Xephos, who had somehow moved to watch the action where Honeydew was. The creature looked to him now, and chirped. Its feathers ruffled up and started to shake back and forth, making a clicking noise. It sniffed the air, and trotted around Xephos.

 

Xephos yelped as the deer creature grabbed his backpack off of his shoulders. He spun around to see what the beast had done, only to find that it was emptying it onto the ground. It sniffed through the pile and pulled out any precious gems and metals it could find. Again, it carefully sniffed through the pile. It selected a set of the crystals that had been collected on the surface of the planet and broke one into smaller pieces, until the pieces were small enough to fit into the beak. Xephos watched with curiosity. Then, he realized how much effort went into collecting the samples.

 

He ran at the beast and yelled incoherently, holding his jacket out in an attempt to make himself look larger.

 

“I am starting to worry,” he said, as the creature shook its feathers again, “That this is not quite the deer I thought it was.”

 

The beast lowered its head and lunged at Xephos, bucking and flinging its antlers about wildly.

 

Xephos jumped and rolled out of the way. He came up with a sword, standing with his side directed at the creature. It prepared to charge again. As it galloped at him, he pirouetted in a flash of brown and blue, and ended up kneeling with his arms crossed, and his sword sticking straight out behind him. The creature landed with its head pressing against the ground, and back legs working out of sync to keep itself up. A gash in its side seemed to be the main cause of its plight. Xephos bent over to wipe the sword against the ground. The blue-grey metal of the sword had been obscured by a deep red that flashed in the torchlight.

 

 

 

A long, high-pitched haunting note came from the creature. In response, notes to match came from not too far off in the woods. A much lower note followed, also close. Xephos looked up from his blade. When Honeydew saw his face, he started to get worried. Honeydew for the first time saw what fear looked like on his friend’s face.

 

“Go, get moving. To the bunker.”

 

As the two started running for their makeshift base, another low note rang out, followed by another, and another. The branches behind the pair could be heard, breaking and snapping. As they reached the bunker, they turned around to see what seemed to be a much larger version of the creature that had previously caused them trouble, with a few major exceptions.

 

The smaller creature had been built for swift maneuvers, shaped for speed. These brutes, on the other hand, were built for power. Thick shoulders and legs propelled the brutes towards them, the ground shaking beneath them. Xephos clicked on his headset and yanked honeydew out of the bunker.

 

“Lalna we need support over here. Now!”

 

“ _What? Why, what’s going on?”_

 

“We’ve got three large creatures on the attack here. They’ve got antlers, and are very angry. I seem to have taken out either a young version of it, or a symbiotic species of close relation. How long until you’re here?”

 

“ _I’m almost there. Give me ten minutes.”_

 

Xephos drew his sword again, along with their attention. One creature charged at him, and with that, another change occurred. Xephos sword fighting is truly a thing to behold, if ever you get the chance. Imagine, if you can a ballet dancer that has been given a sword they know how to use and been told to use their imagination, and you have a close approximation of what Xephos fighting is like. The primary difference, is how effective it is.

 

Xephos dove past the creature, slicing through an ankle. The creature collapsed face-first onto the ground, as the two others cawed and charged. Xephos dodged one like a bullfighter, simultaneously slicing through its side. The other turned, snorted, and charged.

 

The man stood, sword to his side, challenging the beast to attack. He turned and grinned at Honeydew, supplying a wink.

_SLAM!_

 

The third creature slammed its rack of antlers into the warrior. He flew through the air, landing a few meters away.  The beast galloped over, grabbed him in its beak, and shook its head wildly, with a final flip of its gargantuan head, he hit the ground back over where they began.

 

Honeydew snapped out of his dark, nightmarish reverie, turning his attention to the sword on the ground. Sprinting over as fast as his little dwarf legs could carry him, he picked it up. In contrast to the blue that had previously coated the sword, it suddenly seemed to be cast in an orange hue. The Sword felt natural in his hands. It was wider than he would have guessed. The handle was just long enough for him to use it as a broadsword.

 

Xephos was only just behind him. The creature noticed him as it came to inspect its newly caught toy. The creature moved slowly towards him, as if unsure about the small man. It crouched into a sneaking position, preparing to pounce.

 

Honeydew let out the mightiest dwarvern yell to meet the ears of a much taller foe. He charged at the beast. Its eyes widened, and too late, it attempted to lift his head. With the sound of metal grinding against stone combined with a wet thud, the broadsword was lodged handily in the center of its skull.

 

Honeydew, having dispatched his first foe, felt strange. He felt a small sense of satisfaction and joy, and, oddly enough, gratitude. But to what? He looked at his sword. Yes, the sword. He was thankful for—or to—his sword. Well, Xephos’ sword. Xephos’ sword, of course.

 

Xephos.

 

He looked at the crumpled form of his friend, just as a shadow fell over them. The brown shape in the sky descended toward the two. Honeydew hoisted his friend like a firefighter carrying a victim.

 

The airship touched down, and Lalna, eyebrows creased, parked the ship. He jumped off, and rushed toward the pair.

 

“Get on. Get on!” yelled Lalna, pushing Honeydew toward the airship. Honeydew complied, handing Xephos up to Lalna.

 

“Arright, so,” Lalna said, “By air, we’re about fifteen minutes from the portal, but I don’t know if I like how stationary it is. You know, like,” he said, pulling the levers to once more take flight, “not rock-y. but otherwise we’d have to go around a ravine, and who knows how long that could take. And we might run into more of… those things.”

 

As they pulled away from the ground, a small noise rose from the deck.

 

“You know,” croaked the broken body on the floor in front of them, as the airship took off, “you really shouldn’t have moved me. What if I had a spinal injury?”

 

Honeydew didn’t bother answering. He didn’t have the courage.


	12. The Boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> These next three chapters are going to focus on Parvis and Strife.
> 
> _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
> 
> Strife tries to deal with his friend's disappearance. We learn how they met.

It was the middle of the night. William Strife lay there thinking. He heard the floor creak. He sat up slowly, rubbing his eyes, expecting to be greeted by his smaller, scruffier, compatriot.

 

Instead, he was met with the decaying husk of a zombie. Even as shit-faced as he was, he was able to expertly activate his atomic disassembler and dispatch the creature. It was always interesting to watch the pieces of whatever had attacked drift apart, glow black, and then fade out of existence. He then sighed and got up. Usually, Parvis was to blame for leaving the front door open,  and thus, was the one to go close the door but since the experiment had—gone awry, failed, warped Parvis to hell knows where, however you want to say it—it was Strife’s drunken escapades responsible for the door’s obstinate open-ness. He closed it and slid down it, rubbing his eyes in the hopes of shooing away the tears that were begging to roll down his face.

 

“God dammit.”

 

 

Strife was walking through the woods. He had a sword and revolver at his sides, a pick on his back and his map in his hands, plus his night vision goggles. He was twenty years old and setting out after graduating college. He tripped on a root.

 

“God dammit,” He started to get up when he heard a small high-pitched voice.

 

“Don’t move.” He looked up and saw a boy, no older than ten, holding a plastic shiv. His hands were shaking, and the dark hair under his grey cloak fell into near-black brown eyes. A golden clasp kept the cloak on over a black shirt with a house seal on it.

 

“What’re you…”

 

“Don’t move, yeah? I-I-I’m gonna rob you, if it isn’t too much trouble, sir.” The boy approached slowly, arm still extended. He reached for Strife’s bag.

As the child took his eyes off of Strife, Strife handily knocked the shiv from the hands of the child. He picked it up from the ground and pocketed it.

 

“Awful polite for a highwayman, aren’t you?” Strife said as he stood, crossing his arms.

 

The child froze. “No, I… No!”

 

“Really, ‘cause to me, it sounds like this isn’t the kind of thing you’re used to.” Strife cocked his head and gestured to the boy. “What’s with the get-up?”

 

“This… I’m… S’not important!”

 

“What’s your name, boy?”

 

The kid looked away. “They never gave me one.”

 

“They?”

 

“No, I… Look, I’m robbing you! Give me back my knife!”

 

“Look, you must have something people call you.”

 

“The others called me Parvis.”

 

“Alright then Parvis. D’you have a last name, or should I just go with Parvis?”

 

“My owner was a Mr. D. Alexandree.”

 

Strife blinked.

 

“You’re trying to get away from him, then?”

 

Parvis nodded.

 

“You want help with that? I’m heading out for King Square in Delton. I’ve been in talks with a man from there about a place to start a store. You can come if you’d like. We’ll have plenty of food, and it’ll be warm.”

 

The boy waited for Strife to finish, as he had been taught. “Delton’s where I’m from.”

 

Strife sighed and looked back at the map. “Not there then. There’s another town. It’s about a day’s walk East. Want to come along?”

 

Parvis looked at Strife suspiciously. “What’re you going to do to me?”

 

“What? I… Listen, the last thing I’m going to do is hurt you,” he stuck his hand out to introduce himself, “William Strife, Strife Solutions. I’ve got some money and food, so at least let me give you someplace to stay until you figure out where you’re going, okay?”

 

 

Strife woke up against the wooden front door. His head hurt like a thousand blacksmiths were at work in his head. He hadn’t changed out of his work clothes the night before so, though no one would see him today, save for maybe the bar staff, he made an attempt to fix his hair before stepping into his workshop.

 

He couldn’t even think about making an instructional video. He was too hungover and too sad.

 

The machines were still hard at work taking up the ore from the quarry and processing it for maximum output. That’s how he liked to say it to Parv anyway. It would be easier to simply say that the ore was still being doubled. But it was always funny to see Parvis go a little cross-eyed trying to figure out what Strife was talking about.

_DVVVVVVVVVVvvvvvvvvvvvvvv….vvvvvv….vvv_

 

The lights went off, along with the machines.

 

“Christ.”

 

Strife felt along the walls for the box with the flashlight. Feeling something jab into his thumb, he pulled away. He walked out of the workshop, where there was more light. A splinter about an inch long was in his thumb. Though it wasn’t in that deep, it was impressive nonetheless. He went to the kitchen’s tool supply and grabbed the pair of pliers.

 

“Fucking shit,” hissed Strife, yanking out the piece of wood. It came out clean.

 

 

“STRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIFE!”

 

“Fucking shit, sit still,” Strife said, sewing up the gash Parvis had gotten from stepping on a piece of glass. It had been a month since they met and got established in Lower Durslow. “You need to be more careful if you’re gonna walk around the city barefoot. There. All done.” He wrapped a bandage around the boy’s foot.

 

The bell on the front door rang. Strife stepped out from behind the wall separating the store from the house. A stocky man stepped inside, wielding a cane, and wearing expensive-looking clothing. Behind him stood a girl, perhaps a little younger than Strife.

 

“Eh, hello! Welcome to Strife Solutions! What can I do you for?”

 

The man looked around the shop appraisingly. “Now, son, I’m lookin’ for some kinda tool that breaks things real quick. It’ll be ‘specially prechiated if I can use it for self-defense.”

 

Strife blinked at the oddly specific set of requirements.  “Actually, sir, I have just the thing!” He walked around the counter and gestured to the hanging mechanism. “This here’s what I call an atomic disassembler. Not only does it help harvest materials at lightning-fast pace, but it also is a highly-effective weapon against zombies, skeletons, and spiders.” He watched Parvis peek around the corner and quickly pull his head back. “I’ll be honest, it’s expensive, but if you have the money, it’s worth it.”

 

The man tilted his head in thought. “Is there some kind of a payment plan option? I don’t have much on me right now.”

 

“Sure, sure. In that case, it’ll be three-hundred now, and over the course of five weeks, one-hundred-and-fifty more. How does that sound?”

 

The man reached into his pocket and pulled out a checkbook. As he filled out the information, Strife fetched the contract. The man signed on the line. Strife grabbed a box with all the pieces to assemble the Disassembler. The man walked out.

 

Strife’s blood went cold. On the back of the man’s cloak was a house crest.

 

The same one on Parv’s shirt.

 

 

Strife got the flashlight and inspected the machinery. He held the light in his teeth and crawled under the mass of devices. It was the fuse on the capacitor. He switched it out with one of the fuses Parv left near.

 

 

Strife felt his bed shift next to him. He was used to this now. In the two years that Parv had been living with him, more often than not Parv would wake up screaming and move into bed with Strife. Strife never said anything. If it were anyone else, Strife would have said something, but anything that Strife imagined could’ve been happening at that sick fucker’s “person ranch” earned Parvis any little comfort he got from being with someone at night. He rolled over to be facing away from Parvis. It was strange living with Parvis. Parvis, as young as he was, had become Strife’s best friend, after a fashion.

 

So it was time to do him a favor.

 

It had taken weeks of preparation, months of research, and years to work up the gumption to even start to plan, but everything was finally ready. Strife waited for Parvis’s breathing to balance out and got out of bed. He packed what he came to the town with.

 

He mentally checked off his list as he placed his things in his bag.

_A sword_

_A revolver_

_His pickaxe_

_A map._

_Night Vision Goggles_


	13. The Note

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this was supposed to go out a couple days ago, sorry! Also, I'm working on a new project with a friend so keep an eye out!

Strife leaned against Parvis’s door. He hadn’t gone in since Parvis was gone. He rarely went in anyway. For the most part, what Parv did was his business. Today, he thought he would. He reached for the knob. He pulled his hand back and leaned against the opposite wall. After a minute or two, he opened the door and stepped inside.

 

It was musty, and the sunlight through the window lit up clouds of dust. The bed hadn’t been made.

 

Strife began to pull the sheets to a more presentable position. They came out from under the mattress. He bent to put them back under.

 

There was a box under the bed. He hesitated, considering what could be in it before pulling it out and opening it up. In it was a pile of small papers of various colors and textures. On each, in Parvis’s handwriting, was a note to Strife. On a pink one, for example, was written:

 

_Dear Strife,_

_I am writing to say_   _I want you to know  I love you. And I know you don’t feel the same way and that’s okay. Thank you so much for being in my life. The day you found me in those woods was the first day I ever felt like maybe life could be good. Thank you._

_Love,_

_Parvis S._

All had a similar message. Strife sat on the bed, read them, and cried.

 

 

 

He was ready. It was time. On each hip was a weapon. He had more dangerous, more efficient tools of warfare, but these felt right.

 

“Ssrife?” Parv said, still half asleep.

 

Strife looked up. Parvis stood, rubbing his eyes, hair standing up.

 

“Go back to bed, kid. It’s still night.”

 

“Yurrr up!” Parv said, still slurring his words.

_“Parv…”_  said Strife, in a warning tone.

 

“Mmmph. Fine. I ‘ove you.”

 

Strife froze as Parvis shambled back to bed. He began to reason with himself.

_He didn’t mean it. He didn’t know what he was saying. He’s you’re friend. Plus he knows that you’re too old for him. By nine years. So he doesn’t actually love you. See? All better._

 

This wasn’t as helpful as he had hoped. He made a mental note to talk to him when he got back. He left, and made his way to Delton.

 

After walking for about an hour, he found his way to the manor.

 

He walked to the back of the fence where he had found the hole. He crawled through. He made his way to stand in the shadow of the little shed near the trail to the door.

 

As the Guard came close, Strife began to rhythmically snap his fingers. The guard turned toward where Strife was hiding and stepped into the shadow. He was dispatched quickly and silently with a pickaxe to the throat.

 

Strife kept to the shadows. He got around to the side of the porch and hid under it until the guard went around the corner of the house. He had sixty-three seconds to climb the roof quietly. It took him twenty-two. Building a replica porch in the woods had proven useful. He opened the window with the blue glow of the atomic disassembler on the wall. He stepped in quietly and grabbed it. The idiot hadn’t shut it off. It was easy to see, not to mention a hazard. He shut it off, and made his way to the bedroom.

 

He kicked the door open. All that stealth had been leading to this moment. Seventy seven seconds until a guard would be in the room.

 

The man sat up in bed.

 

“Wh-who’s there?” came the man’s voice.  Seventy one.

 

Strife put a foot up onto the bed.  Sixty five.

 

“Consider this a Strife Solutions repossession.” Strife reactivated the disassembler. He swung it cleanly through the man’s neck, and watched the pieces of the man drift apart. Fifty seven.

 

The fucker never paid for the Disassembler anyway.

 

Fifty five. 

 

 

 

_Oh god how could I he was just a boy oh my god oh my god what the hell was I thinking I never should have taken him in I should have given him to the-the-the authorities oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my godohmygodohmygod_

 

Strife waited for fifty more seconds. Five seconds until a guard appeared at the doorway, give or take. A young man in uniform stepped into the doorway. Strife held the AD like a battering ram and slammed the guy off the balcony into the parlor.

_They all wear the crest. They’re all guilty._

 

This part was the more dangerous part. The most unplanned part. He had to find where the rest of the slaves were being kept and free them. He had to give them to the authorities.

 

Unfortunately, there was no way to figure this out beforehand. However, he was certain they were still here somewhere. During the day, he would watch the man go out on the town with a different child every day. The few days that he tailed the man, he watched him instruct the children on manners and charm, with harsh reprimands for any mistakes. Presumably to make them more marketable.

 

He began slicing through each door, looking for wherever the children were stashed away. Another guard ran up, but paused when he saw the AD.

 

“Tell me where the children are.” Strife commanded.

 

“They’re um… They… Bottom floor. Under the staircase.”

 

“Give me the keys.”

 

The guard fumbled with the key ring and handed the set to him.

 

Strife spun the AD like a baton before sending it through the guard’s torso. He waved away the dusty remains of the guard and hopped the bannister, using his sword to slow his decent. He landed silently and hidden. He slid the goggles onto his eyes. There was a guard going up the staircase. The ones that came in from the outside were loading rifles.

 

Strife deactivated the AD, hoping the blue glow hadn’t already given him away. He unholsered his revolver. He crept to the staircase, careful to avoid any damaged-looking boards, and sticking to the shadows. He waited until the man that appeared to be the head guard was shouting orders before turning on the AD. Though he had the keys, he feared the prospect of creaking hinges getting him and the children killed. He sliced a hole through the wall, large enough to crawl through,  and entered the room.

 

He began to use the AD as a light source. From what he could see, there were wall to wall bunk beds. He approached one.

 

“Kid,” hissed Strife, “Wake up.”

 

The girl sitting in the bed sat up. A jangling alerted Strife to the presence of handcuffs keeping the children attached to the beds.

 

“Okay kid. Unlock yourself and the others. I’ll guard the entrance. Let me know when you have everyone.”

 

Strife began to carve a cove in the wall, hoping to provide cover for the children.

 

The bleary-eyed kids stood around Strife. The girl that roused them tugged on his coat.

 

“We’re ready,” said the girl in a frighteningly similar tone of voice to Parvis.

 

The door slammed open.

 

The guards opened fire.

 

The girl caught a round in her neck.


	14. The Girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this conclusion of the three Strife Chapters, Strife finds someone he didn't think he'd ever see again. (Don't worry about Parvis, he'll be fine.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After looking over how it looks, I really hope you all get where the perspective shifts are, it seems possibly difficult to me!

Strife stumbled to the bar. His face was still tear-stained from reading Parvis’s undelivered letters.

 

He sat on his usual stool.

 

He dropped three gold pieces onto the counter.

 

“Usual” he spat hoarsely as the barmaid took the coins.

 

“This is enough for thirty drinks,” she said.

 

Strife grunted in response.

 

“Planning to drink all that?”

 

Another grunt.

 

“Keep the change, an’ all that?”

 

A non-commital nod.

 

“Wow, I feel like we’re almost communicating. You realize you’re supposed to tell the bartender your problems.”

 

Silence. No movement.

 

“Well, let me know if you change your mind.”

 

Strife took a deep breath in. “Well I… You don’t want to hear this.”

 

“Suit yourself. It’s not actually my job, that. I hate to see such a pretty face looking so sad though.”

 

Strife blinked and looked up.

 

Strife gasped

 

 

A roar was all he could remember. At least part, if not all of it came from him. He drove the AD through more guards than he would have thought would even be there. He deflected bullets with the AD, something he would’ve said was impossible had he not been doing it.

 

But that roar couldn’t be all him. Some of it was the blonde girl, most likely in her late teens that had been standing near the fallen girl. She lept forward and grabbed the throat of the guard that had killed her. Though she looked frail, her overlong nails dug into his neck, drawing blood. He was frozen in fear and possibly pain. She threw him to the ground. His head hit the stomach of the still twitching girl. She drove her heel into the throat of the guard over and over again, until there was enough blood to rival the dying girls.

 

Some of the children were smart enough to hide in the alcove Strife had created. Most were not.

 

Most were killed. They did, however, make a dent in the enemy forces. The cost was not worth the payoff.

 

Soon enough all the guards were dead. Strife looked around at the bodies on the ground. The girl kneeled near the corpse she had killed over. She leaned down and shut the girl’s eyes. Strife saw a gunshot wound in her shoulder.  She jumped as his hand rested on her head.

 

“H-h-hey, you need to get that treated,” Strife said, helping her to her feet.

 

A beam of light came in through the door and hit the two of them. Strife looked out and saw the sun.

 

The girl, woman almost, laughed and wiped her eyes. “Me? Have you seen yourself?”

 

“N-n-nah, I…” Strife looked down. There were at least three wounds. One in his shoulder, one in his leg, one in his stomach. His knee felt fucked up. He looked back at the sun.

 

He fell to the floor.

 

 

 

 

  _The Girl_

 

“It’s… you.”

 

“How astute of you,” the girl—from the break-out—rolled her eyes, “Now, I’m not supposed to say things like this, but why don’t we just put this money back in your pocket, I leave early, and we talk over coffee. You’re buying, obviously, since you’re so rich.”

 

Strife and the Girl left for the nearest coffee shop.

 

 

Strife woke up in a hospital bed. He had on a cast and many bandages. Potions of healing sat on his bedside table. A note sat next to them.

 

_Hey there, Mystery Man,_

_I hope this letter finds you in good health. Me and the others brought you here. I’ll be honest, last night was really shitty. REALLY shitty. But, now we’re out._

_I don’t know how you are with empathy, but if you’re anything like me, you’re going to be pretty upset after how many of my friends bit it. But I think I’m finally going to take the advice of the guy that kept us there. He’d always tell me “I hate to see such a pretty face looking so sad.”_

_It’s crappy advice, sure, but I’m going to smile through the pain. Smile through all of it._

_Thank you._

_The Girl_

 

“I followed the signs.”

 

“The signs?”

 

The Girl nodded, “The ones with your face printed all over them.”

 

“Ah.”

 

“I figured one day I’d stumble across you. I didn’t have the courage to come into your store though.”

 

“No?”

 

“Nah. I was worried you wouldn’t recognize me.”

 

“I didn’t”

 

“I figured if I went somewhere the rabble visits, eventually, I’d find the guy that lives nearby,” she made a thoughtful face, “I’ve always wanted to ask you… Why’d you come for us?”

 

“Same reason I’ve been drinking all month. I have—had—a friend. He was one of you and escaped somehow. I-I never asked him how.”

 

“Why past tense?”

 

“Well I was designing a new product. A…” Strife laughed, “A ‘solution.’ It was supposed to be a gateway for interdimensional travel,” he grimaced and took a sip of his coffee, “It was a little more one- way than I had expected. I hope to god that wherever Parv is he has oxygen and clean water.”

 

“Christ.”

 

Strife nodded.

 

“Parv?”

 

“Parvis.”

 

“You know, I remember him?”

 

Strife looked back up at her. He hadn’t realized that he’d ever been looking into his drink.

 

“What was he like before?”

 

“God, there’s not much to say about any of those kids. About _myself_ before. How do you describe the personality of one zombie, or one dead tree? If I had to say, he was sweet. I think he was secretly bitter as hell, but he wouldn’t ever make a fuss, especially if there were guards around. Or worse…” she trailed off, but Strife knew who she meant anyway.

 

Strife couldn’t help but chuckle, trying to imagine Parv not making a fuss. “I’ve never been more grateful for him whining to me about one thing or another. After hearing that.”

 

“He’d have to be what, sixteen today?”

 

“Really, today?”

 

The girl nodded. “About, yeah. Around this time of the month.”

 

“How d’you like that? I… We always celebrated on the day that I picked him up. And I would’ve said he was only fifteen.”

 

The girl shook her head. I was brought in when I was little. Parvis’s mom was pregnant young. I helped deliver him.”

 

Strife took another sip. He heard thunder nearby.

 

“How do you know what day his birthday was?”

 

“I spent a lot of time after I got out figuring out how long I was in there, when things happened, etcetera.”

 

“Ah.”

 

They sat in silence for a moment. Strife broke it.

 

“He deserved better than what he got.”

 

“We all did.”

 

Strife secretly meant that Parvis deserved better than _him_ but decided she was right either way. Not worth bringing up.

 

“I need to go.”

 

“Sure. I never caught your name, Ms…?”

 

She smiled, standing in the doorway of the coffee shop. “Fuck that. If you wanted to know, I’ve been wearing a name tag every time you’ve come in,” she quickly moved her hand to cover it up, “Oops, no cheating.” Her smile dropped off her face, “It seems fitting that you don’t remember me by a name anyway. Weird?”

 

Strife shrugged. “Hey, before you go?”

 

“Mhm?”

 

“Who was that little girl?”

 

“My sister.”

 

“How’s smiling through the pain going?”

 

“Not too bad. It’s easier now.”

 

“Will I see you at the bar?”

 

She scoffed. “I’ll still _work_ there. I’d better not see you though.”

 

She left. Strife ordered another coffee.

 

Strife reached into his pocket and pulled out the pink note. He memorized it.

 

Poor Parvis.

 

 

“You’re just a kid.”

 

“Am not.”

 

“Are too!” said Strife, shifting to lean against the countertop. His crutch was hurting his arm.

 

He had come in to find Parvis cooking and cleaning, busying himself in hopes that Strife would return soon. Parvis jumped when Strife came in. Parvis swallowed when Strife said ‘we need to talk.’ Parvis flinched when Strife said ‘I don’t love you… that way.’

 

“Parv, you only just turned twelve. I’m twenty-two. Do you see how even if I _wanted to_ we couldn’t be together?”

 

Parvis pouted, kept his eyes to the ground, and fidgeted. He snapped his head up and opened his mouth as if to argue. He looked away.

 

“I’m tired. I didn’t get any sleep last night, I was too worried about you,” he sniffled and rubbed his eyes. “I’m going to bed.”

 

“No, Parv, wait,” Parvis stopped and turned back to look at Strife, “Just because I don’t love you… I DO care about you.” He opened his arms.

 

Parvis hesitantly came over to him, seemingly shocked at the offer of physical affection. Strife made a show of rolling his eyes, prompting Parvis to bury his face in Strife’s chest.

 

“I’m sorry if I don’t make that clear enough. You’re pretty much the closest thing I have to a friend. _Technically_ , you’re someone I know from outside of work and willingly hang out with, you know?”

 

Though it was partly a sob, this comment got the desired laugh out of Parvis. Parvis started squeezing harder.

 

“Haha, okay, Parvis, watch it. I _have_ been shot, you know.”

 

Parvis’s voice was muffled by flesh and fabric. “I wish you’d tell me how that happened.”

 

Strife rubbed his small friend’s hair. “When you’re older. Eighteen, say. Anyway, you can’t go to bed, there’s work to be done. C’mon, I have an idea for how I can heal faster, even without potions.”

 

 

Strife took the box of love letters out from under the bed. He dug a hole in the ground about three feet deep, and placed it in. He opened it, pulled out the pink note, and stuffed it in his pocket. He said a few words, and buried the box.

 

He added a tombstone.

 

_Parvis Strife_

_Gone for now. Not forgotten._

_If he returns, exhume. Break the tombstone._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In other news, would anyone be up for a somewhat-monthly serial about a road trip? It would be an original work, and would be written like a transcript of a voice recording, A.K.A. very stream-of-consciousness. Let me know!


	15. Broken Boy, Broken Tool

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rip Xephy Xeph

As they moved back through the portal, Xephos woke up a second time. At this point, he made an attempt to sit up. He winced and grabbed his ribs.

 

 “Try not to move. Your ribs are most likely broken,” Lalna said, looking over his shoulder. He turned back, he noted that Xephos’ injuries did not seem life-changing, or worse, life-threatening. He continued piloting the ship, feeling a sense of relief that neither his voice nor face let on. Not only was Xephos his friend, but he was also the leader. In a strange way, Lalna was more than happy to let him take charge. At first, he hadn’t been giving much in the way of creative freedom in his science, but when Xephos took charge, Lalna was allowed to mostly make whatever he wanted. Xephos, however, had a way of laying out the necessary steps and precautions that would need to be taken. Lalna had creative freedom, as long as he was working on whatever project they had selected.

 

Suffice to say, Xephos, if badly wounded, would have been missed.

 

It was daytime back on their planet. There were birds singing, and the sheep that were commonly found by the cave entrance were lazily grazing.

 

They stopped the ship near the entrance.

 

“Listen, Honeydew, I think we have the things inside to make a gurney, but I need your help to grab the materials and put them together,” They quickly clambered off the airboat, and ran inside, “I’ll need two sticks, thread, and a needle.”

 

Lalna ran into his room, and dug through the clothes rack to find his biggest lab coat. He was moderately certain that most of them would be big enough to hold Xephos, but he needed to be sure. His eyes briefly lingered on a specific lab coat. It had been a gift from Nanosounds, after their first year of living and working together. It was made from a mostly white durable fabric, save for the deep purple stripes edged by gold so thin it had been used as thread. It was his favorite lab coat.

 

 He grabbed another coat. It was slightly shorter, and one end was slightly frayed, but it was the second longest coat he had.

 

Lalna rushed out to the main room holding the selected coat. Honeydew was holding the sticks and thread with an impatient expression on his face.

 

“Took you long enough,” Honeydew said, uncrossing his arms and laying the sticks out on the ground, and threading the needle, “Give me the coat.”

 

He let out a stream of air when he saw it, “It’s a real piece of shit, but it’ll do.”

 

Lalna looked away.

 

Honeydew stitched up the labcoat into a gurney, attached to the sticks, and they ran out of the cove. Back on the boat, Xephos was now lying on his side. His friends returned, and rolled him onto the gurney. As they lifted the gurney, he let out a quiet moan, but bit his sleeve, attempting to stifle himself. His other arm he let lay still by his side.

 

As they tried to dismount the ship, Lalna realized the obvious issue with their plan.

 

“How’re we gonna get ‘im off?” Honeydew asked, echoing Lalna’s thoughts.

 

“I’ll head down and we can try to minimize the slope. Then, I guess, you climb down as much as you can while still able to reach the gurney, and lower it down from there.”

 

“Will that work?”

 

“It’s our best bet of getting him in the cave.”

 

As he climbed down the ladder, Lalna was grateful for his inordinate height. He pulled the gurney as far as he could toward the edge before Honeydew began his decent. The dwarf held one of the handles in his surprisingly strong jaws, using one hand to help lower the gurney and the other to maneuver the ladder.

 

Then came the noise that Lalna had been dreading.

_Riiipppp!_

 

The dwarf swore and Xephos groaned as he grabbed onto the wooden frame with his broken arm.

 

Honeydew expertly maneuvered to hold his friend’s shoulders up before he hit the ground. He swung to catch Xephos’ legs before the gurney hit the ground. His long arms hooked Xephos under the knees and neck, bridal style.

 

“C’mon, Xeph. S’gonna hurt like hell, but I’ll get you to bed no problem.”

 

Xephos groaned again.

 

Honeydew gritted his teeth. “Get the door open for me.”

 

Lalna, who had frozen in place, scrambled to let his friends into the abode. Honeydew rushed to the man’s bed. Xephos hissed as he was released. Lalna watched in awe as Honeydew felt Xephos’ unbroken arm for a few seconds, before setting the broken one.

 

Xephos’ scream told Lalna that he had not been as impressed. Honeydew continued this process with Xephos’ ribcage.

 

Lalna stared at the pair.

 

“How’d you learn to do that?” he asked, shocked.

 

“Had to, didn’t I? If a dwarf falls a good sixty feet he’s in for a few broken bones. The nearest bloke’s gotta fix him while the doctor comes round,” he sniffed and rubbed his beard.

 

“Yeah, but a dwarf and a human has a different bone structure. How’d you learn how to do that with Xeph?”

 

“You were paying attention, weren’t you?” Honeydew asked, creasing his eyebrows, “I felt around a bit to get a grasp on how you lot work.”

 

It struck Lalna that Honeydew was cleverer than he first appeared.

 

“Get the poor guy some, er, Hotiron Weed—wait, you lot just call it yellow flower—for the pain.”

 

When Lalna didn’t move, Honeydew cried, “Now, you twit!”

 

Lalna ran to get some of the “yellow flower” for Xephos’ pain. Honeydew looked down at the man.

 

“Christ, how are you?” asked the dwarf.

 

“You… were telling the truth.”

 

Honeydew cocked his head, “What about?”

 

“That hurt… like… hell.”

 

Honeydew snorted. Xephos chuckled and winced.

 

“Was setting that really necessary?” Xephos asked.

 

“Yeah, unless you’ve got some better way of doing it. I actually know a magical way to heal broken bones, but Mr. Fancy Science Guy won’t drink it, I’d bet.”

 

“How’s it work?”

 

“I don’t know, Xephos. I put a bunch of stuff in a water bottle, heat it over a flame, and draw some circles around it and when it lights on fire it’s ready.”

 

“That’s the problem with magic,” Xephos said, appearing pained with every word, “people just accept how it works and never thinks twice about what goes on behind it.”

 

 

“Hey, hey, I don’t know how a spaceship works either, but we’re building that. Understanding isn’t my job.”

 

Xephos thought for a moment. “You make an interesting point, Honeydew.”

 

“Yeah, that there, that’s my job. Interesting points, good bedside manner, that kind of stuff.”

 

“Not to mention expert craftsmanship.”

 

“Mmm.”

 

Lalna walked back in.

 

“Do… am I interup—”

 

“No,” Xephos said, “Come on in.”

 

“I’ve got the flower. Does he just eat the petals or…?”

 

“He’s meant to suck on the stem to get the nectar. I’m gonna get a cast ready.”

 

He left.

 

After a while, Lalna joined him.

 

“Sorry I snapped at you, Lal.”

 

“It’s fine.”

 

“Nah, not really. It’s not your fault it ripped, and if I’m being honest, I was taking that out on you.”

 

Lalna squirmed nearly imperceptibly.

 

“It wasn’t, yeah?”

 

Lalna said nothing.

 

“Well, what would you have done differently?”

 

“I grabbed my crappy coat ‘cause I didn’t want to ruin my good coat.”

 

Honeydew leaned on the counter. “God damn it, Lalna. I could have fixed it after!”

 

“Well, I know that. I just…”

 

“Just what, Lalna?” he put his hand to his forehead. “God. At least he didn’t actually get hurt cause of it.”

 

Honeydew pulled an old knife out of a drawer and started chopping ingredients for the potion.

 

Lalna stared at the stain on the tip and remembered the feeling of sticking it into Xephos. He shook his head, and started to assemble an oil engine.


	16. A Shock and a Half

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Honeydew is about to reach his goal!

Xephos came into the room on crutches. He was holding a clipboard in the hand with the broken forearm. He took off his glasses.

 

“Honeydew, come along. I have something for you.”

 

Their pace was uncomfortably slow as Honeydew trailed behind the limping man. “This took longer than we thought it would, especially with my injury, but now we’re ready, I think.”

 

“Ready for what, Xeph?” Honeydew asked.

 

Xephos turned to face him.

 

“Ready to send you to space, of course.”

 

Honeydew reeled. He knew that they weren’t far off, but ut had only been—what, a few months? And they already had a rocket. “How?”

 

Xephos considered this. “Well, I already had a lot of the tools on hand. I just needed the materials. You were very helpful, for the metal, and Lalna went and got the oil, turned it into fuel, etc.,” he smiled and clicked his way onward to the launch pad, “Come along now!”

 

He opened up a door—one of the few Honeydew wasn’t allowed in—and revealed a small workshop. In the middle, on a diminutive armor rack, was a space suit.

 

“It has all modern conveniences. There’s a modified version of the current communicator we use, a holographic display that should show you your vitals, oxegen supply, and suit damage. It’s also linked with the spaceship, so… I mean, I don’t know if you were paying attention in the classes, and I don’t blame you if you weren’t, those were even boring to teach. But since it’s linked, anything you need to do to land will be displayed on the visor as well. Plus the basics, air conditioning, lots of pockets, as per your request, there’s also a rebreather which should make the air last longer.

 

“Based on the tests we’ve done, you’re atypically resistant to extreme temperatures, however, the suit acts as a major insulator, so you can have it at whatever temperature you like best. Additionally, it’s structurally reinforced, meaning it makes you nearly impervious to all forms of blast, slice, and crush damage. I have no proof of whether or not falls from great heights are dangerous, so don’t go testing that.”

 

Honeydew had clearly lost focus. “Sure, yeah.”

 

“It might have been nice to have that going to the different worlds.”

 

“Agreed.”

 

Lalna walked in. Something was different with him. He itched his scraggly beard and approached the pair.

 

“Xephos, I hate to put us off schedule, but you should see this.”

 

“You’ve been working with those books more, as I asked?” Xephos inquired impatiently.

 

“Yeah. That’s why I need your help.”

 

“Sorry, Honeydew,” Xephos said, face apologetic, as he turned to his small friend, “Mind waiting a few minutes?”

 

Honeydew shrugged and the two scientists left for the library.

 

 

After a half an hour after Honeydew had decided to put on his gear, and just as he began to wonder if he should go see if he could help, the pair burst back in.

 

“He won’t do it,” Lalna was saying.

 

“He will. He’ll jump at the chance to have a go at some technology.”

 

“God, do I have to?”

 

“Look, though he can be unpleasant, and I’m not a fan of his magic, he’s the most powerful person I can think of. Plus, he likes you more than he lets on.”

 

At this, Lalna blushed, “Does not. What about Zoey?”

 

“She won’t come. He’ll keep her away from it by any means.”

 

Honeydew sat up. “Welcome back, fellas!”

 

 “Honeydew,” replied Xephos, “Sorry that took so long. I’m afraid we’ll only have Lalna until after you land. Then, I’ll be all there is at mission control.”

 

“No worries, chaps,” Honeydew said, taking a closer look at the downtrodden Lalna. “You sure you don’t want me for whatever you’re talking about? Sounds like a job for a dwarf.”

 

“Not at all!” Xephos said, leaning onto his crutch, “This is far too important. Space, Honeydew, think of it!”

 

Honeydew grinned.

 

“The launch pad is just through these doors,” said Xephos, once again, slowly leading the way.

 

As the doors creaked open, feeling like an anticipatory scream, revealing an imposing and grey metallic rocket ship. He stepped over to a control panel, and pulled a lever.

 

The doors opened and steam… Or perhaps fog, oozed out of the gap. A red leather seat, with chrome edges.

 

Honeydew turned to Xephos and Lalna.

 

The pair nodded excitedly.

 

Honeydew took a seat. As the door slid shut, consols folded around the chair, and he clicked on his headset.

 

“ _Alright, so we have all the control of the ship. If you remember anything, it’s only useful if we lose control somehow, AND we can’t walk you through it. See that button? Red, bigger than the others, right in front of you?”_

 

Honeydew searched around, spotting a button that seemed to fit the description. “Yeah, right here.”

 

Lalna’s voice came in. “ _Alright, that’s the one button you need to press yourself. It’ll slow you down when you finally get to the moon. The way it’s all wired, we aren’t able to do that for you.”_

 

After running though more safety features—none of which Honeydew was able to remember—the countdown finally began.

 

Xephos’ voice came in over the headset.

_“Ten.”_

_“Nine.”_

_“Eight.”_

_“Seven.”_

_“Six.”_

 

It was actually happening.

_“Five.”_

_“Four.”_

 

Honeydew was going to space.

_“Three.”_

 

Honeydew smiled.

_“Two.”_

_“One!”_

 

Wait, what if—

_“Blast off!”_

 

Honeydew’s brief second of doubt would have to wait, as he felt himself compress, the forces of gravity versus the force of the rocket acting on him in surprising measure. He closed his eyes and waited for the uncomfortable sensation to stop.

 

 

 

After an exercise filled day—Xephos insisted that it was important to do that or his muscles would atrophy—of drifting to the moon, Honeydew was worried. This was partly because of the fact that he was worried about the landing, and partly because Xephos was barely coming in over headset. Even though it was an admittedly far distance, Xephos had promised that the headsets would work.

 

Come to think of it, it worked when they went to planets millions of light-years away. It should’ve still been working.

 

In came Xephos’ voice, in a way. The crackling and beeps from the headset drowned out his voice.

 

Honeydew gave up on interpreting Xephos’ words as he gazed down on the approaching moon. Took a few deep breaths. He remembered the red button.

 

Which was a good thing, as in that moment, an alarm went off, along with a light up display.

 

 

_PRESS AND HOLD RED BUTTON_

 

Honeydew started. His hand shook, and he hesitated, wanting to be sure that he hit the right button.

 

Just as his hand hit the button, the lights went out. The buttons stopped glowing. The only light came from the blue glow of the moon.

 

The moon however wasn’t blue. The angle of the light was wrong. A hand landed on his shoulder.

 

A chill ran down his spine and fear gripped him as Honeydew turned to find whomever was behind him.

 

It was a monstrosity. Though it had the appearance of a man, whatever it was had three pairs of eyes, one stacked on the other. It had blue crystalline horns. As it smiled, three pairs of fangs descended from the top row of gums.

 

The beast spoke. Honeydew, though he was unable to understand what it was saying, could tell it was switching languages.

_Semtri carrluum morellant fotrus Krindus”_

_“T’lek nofubeck dakreklektek Kirin”_

_“Voorumn shombore Davokir”_

_“Aiiiieee nam Kirin”_

 

A pause.

_“I. Am. Kirindave.”_

 

Honeydew was frozen with fear. He could hear Xephos try to talk to him.

 

He could feel the rocket tilt as the moon’s gravity began to affect the ship. The creature wasn’t affected. Honeydew spun and slammed on the button. When nothing happened, he frantically spammed the button.

 

Kirindave craned its neck and peered out the window.

 

Its three pairs of eyes widened at the quickly approaching surface, and it turned to Honeydew.

 

“Goodbye.”

 

Without further ado, the creature, Kirindave, disappeared.

 

Honeydew looked out the window in terror as the lights and buttons all flicked back on.

 

The horizon spun and bucked as the rocket went into a tailspin.

 

Xephos’ voice came back in “ _—eydew, PULL UP. Respond! Press the—_ “

 

“ _Oh, fuck it!_ ” came Lalna’s voice.

 

Honeydew’s suit activated. The panels allowing air flow closed. The Plexiglas faceplate shut.

 

In contrast, the front of the rocket opened.

 

Honeydew was shot out, still sitting in his chair. For a brief second, Honeydew was facing the planet he called home. Dispite the startling situation, Honeydew was met with a moment of calm. He reached a hand up, feeling as though he could touch the planet. A rubber bubble incased the small man, and as this happened, the chair spun and he ended up facing the ground.

 

 

He watched the rocket explode below him on impact. The flames ran over the casing around the chair harmlessly.

 

Honeydew hit the ground.


	17. Building Camp

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Xephos faces a dilemma; He and Honeydew work together to make the moon habitable.

Honeydew bounced in his protective seat.

 

He had landed, albeit unsuccessfully. His chair, apparently, had a built in protection device, causing him to bounce across the near-desert that made up the moon.

 

“ _His vitals are fine.”_

_“Yeah but how long can he stay on the moon?”_

_“If enough of the supplies survived, a two weeks.”_

_“If not?”_

_“He starts dying of dehydration in five days.”_

 

“Guys?”

_“HONEYDEW!”_ came Xephos’ voice, making the small astronaut jump, _“are you alright?”_

 

“Yeah, yeah. T’sall good here. The balloon chair worked just fine.”

_“Good to hear your voice friend.”_

_“Mhm,”_ said Lalna, sounding just as concerned.

_“Alright, Honeydew, new question,”_ Xephos started, getting right down to business, _“How did this happen?”_

 

The dwarf tried to find an option that wouldn’t make him look crazy.

 

“There was this… thing in the capsule with me. When I started to land, it appeared, and when it did, all of the machinery turned off.”

_“What happened then?”_

 

“It went through what sounded like a bunch of different languages and then when it looked out of the window and saw that we were crashing and disappeared.”

_“Alright, you said it went through a bunch of different languages. Did it say anything?”_

 

“Yeah, it said, um… ‘I am Kirindave.’ What do you think of that?”

_“I’m not sure about who or what that is. I’ll ask around. What did it look like?”_ Xephos inquired.

 

Honeydew did his best to describe what he saw.

 

 

Xephos knit his fingers together after hearing Honeydew’s description of the creature.

 

“Kirindave, eh?”

_“Yep.”_

 

He leaned on his hand and glanced to Lalna, who was looking worriedly at the darkened consol. Xephos’ question was whether or not Lalna could still go through the book to another world or if he had to stay.

 

On one hand, Honeydew was trapped. Two heads were better than one. Even though Xephos was more likely to be able to walk Honeydew though the process of building the life support he needed, Lalna’s being there could still prove helpful.

 

Somehow, maybe. On the other hand, it seemed like a one person job. He could sit and work with Honeydew until the dwarf was safe, alone, and no matter how long it took.

 

How long could Xephos stay awake? His record was a week and a half but that was with a steady supply of food, caffine, and his medication, none of which he would have if Lalna left.

 

Alternatively they could work in shifts. The taller man could take daytimes and the he could take care of the nights.

 

Assuming that Honeydew could stay awake… Forever. Not to mention that there could be some very valuable rocket components on this new planet. Though there were many pros and cons to both options, Xephos readily admitted to himself that it came down to how much he could trust his own abilities.

 

Lalna looked at Xephos with his head cocked.

 

“You want me to stay, don’t you?” Lalna asked, a hint of sadness creeping into his voice.

 

When Xephos shook his head, the corner of Lalna’s mouth twitched up and he looked away. “I’ll get my bag packed, then!” he said, quickly walking to his room, like a child pretending to be unexcited.

 

 

_“Now press the button on the side.”_

 

Honeydew pressed the button and widened his eyes as beams of blue-green light shot out of the sides of the metal box, building metal beams and glass panes as they swirled and twisted in the air.

_“It’s a third dimension particle accelerator. It superheats metal and glass and then 3D prints it into a tangible thing. In this case, it’s set to build a near-airtight building with an airlock._

_“The next thing you need to find is the high-volume air tanks. Those should be able to stay outside and hook into the structure currently being built, and refill your suit’s air tanks. Go on and find those.”_

_“Alright, that’s all hooked up. Shall I turn it on?”_

 

Xephos scratched his head as he prepared to explain what had to come first. “Actually, we need some way to generate power. Otherwise there won’t be a way to regulate the flow.”

 

He blinked as he remembered exactly what the generator ran on.

 

“It burns biological material. There should be potatoes and carrots somewhere. Hopefully intact.”

_“I burn those, do I?”_ asked Honeydew after a wave of static.

 

“No, no, not at all. That’s where you need to deposit all fecal matter,” said Xephos, clearing his throat, “That’s where the potatoes and carrots come into the picture.”

 

Honeydew cackled, eliciting a snicker from Xephos.

 

Xephos looked at his watch. It had been three hours since Honeydew had crashed. He smiled at the good time they were making.

 

 

 

“So go over this again with me?”

_“Alright, you’re looking for one of those books we used to get back home when we were planet hopping. If we have two of those we can travel back and forth from the moon back to base.”_

 

Honeydew looked at the charred wreckage of the spaceship for what was probably the fifth time that day.

 

“Erm, Xephos?” Honeydew said, spotting the books he was talking about a short distance from where the ship had crashed, “Only one is intact.”

 

There was silence from the other end. Honeydew looked out into the flat, grey, expanse that was the moon’s plains, and felt his skin crawl.

 

“Xephos?”

_“Yeah, yeah,”_ Honeydew heard what was either static or shuffling papers, _“Does it have writing in it?”_

 

Honeydew checked. “Yeah, why?”

 

Xephos sighed with what Honeydew assumed was relief, _“That means you can come home.”_

 

Honeydew’s hand hovered over the ink on the pages. “Shall I then?”

_“No! No. Sorry. You counted provisions for a week and a half, right?”_

 

“Yeah?”

_“Well when all that starts to get dangerously low, then you can come back, but I’d much rather send Lalna up there to create a link to the moon base before you come back.”_

 

Honeydew pulled back his hand and closed the book. “Yeah, that makes sense I guess.”

 

 

_“Yeah, that makes sense I guess.”_

 

Xephos could hear the worry in Honeydew’s voice.

 

“Listen, friend, I can promise you that I’ll be here with you. The whole week and a half, okay? Night or day. You won’t be alone, and I’ll be working on getting either Lalna or myself up there.”

 

Honeydew huffed out a small chuckle. _“Right, of course. Sorry, I shouldn’t doubt you for that.”_

 

A pause.

_“Thanks, friend.”_

 

“Now get that cot and bed roll set up, okay? You’ve been doing a lot of labor, and it’s been a stressful day for you. Get to bed. I’ll be waiting when you wake up.”

 

Honeydew did as he was told and they said their goodnights.

 

Xephos prepared a pot of coffee.

 

It was going to be a long week, after all.


	18. The Scientist and the Mage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lalna goes adventuring, and brings along an old... enemy?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realized that it might be hard for people to read this without double-spaced paragraphs. Hopefully it helps that I added spaces between them.
> 
> Also, these chapters sort of call back to a short work om my Tumblr (inventorben. If you 'aren't inclined to go find that, don't worry. I'll upload it as a chapter in the future.

Lalna looked up at the stone cube that Rythian called a castle. At one point there had been a mountain where the castle now stood.

 

Though the architecture was lacking, veins of ore, fossils, and different types and eras of stone gave the monolith a marbled, interesting appearance.

 

Though Rythian would never let him, he would just love to take samples of each type of rock.

 

As he reached for the handle, a chill ran through him. He found himself unable to turn the handle. He strained against the sudden apprehension and fear flowing through him.

 

“ _Farf tha huum._ ”

 

He suddenly relaxed. He blinked at his own sudden change in attitude, and turned to look where the voice had come from.

 

A man stood there. He was tall and thin, and his long limbs, though toned, still appeared weak. His skin was a dark brown, nearly black, and his hair, cornrowed back, was dark to match, save for a single chalk-white streak near the center. A purple cloak slowly shifted around a black and grey jacket as if blown in the wind in slow motion, and similarly dark pants covered his legs down to weightly boots. A dark turquoise scarf covered his shoulders, and wrapped over his nose and mouth. Just around the edge of the scarf, Lalna could see traces of pure, glistening black, as if the man in front of him had his chin dipped in tar. His eyes, however, were a bright turquoise, a stark and vivid contrast to the dark color scheme.

 

Though his outfit left much of his face to the imagination, his demeanor revealed much about him. He stood with arms and legs pressed close to his torso and he moved slowly, a graceful, yet powerful display, like molten magma rolling down a mountain. Whether this was purposeful or just how he stood and moved, Lalna was unable to tell. His eyes revealed a long history of pain, some of which had left a flicker of anger, slowly burning into a mixture of emotional fatigue and quiet, yet acute resentment.

 

Or perhaps Lalna just knew him too well.

 

“Hello Lalna,” the man said in a shrill voice, switching back to the common tongue.

 

Lalna was torn between a smile and a frustrated scowl at the sight of him, “Rythian.”

 

Rythian tilted his head to the side and looked down, sighing deeply. “Why have you come?”

 

He was his usual dramatic self.

 

“What was that?” Lalna asked, pointing at the door.

 

“A fear spell,” he said, his eyes gleaming with either pride or depravity, “if you were determined enough to enter, you would have stood there until you starved.”

 

Lalna looked at him uncertainly. “And what did you say?”

 

“It was just a little reversal spell. It will be off for a few more minutes. Go inside.” It wasn’t a request.

 

The door opened and Rythian stepped inside, followed quickly by Lalna.

 

The interior was as odd as the outside. Though the walls, ceiling, and floor had been covered in basalt (more organized, but too monotone for Lalna’s taste), the decor was still as haphazard as the exterior. There were wooden chairs in a circle, an oven sat in the middle of the floor. A workbench was sitting in the corner. Most of the floor was empty space. Over on the north wall was a staircase to the second floor.

 

Rythian turned to Lalna with what could be guessed to be a grin. “I decorated myself!”

 

Footsteps echoed as a young, red-headed, woman appeared. Though she wasn’t tall, she was dense from a combination of muscle (which Lalna had always silently mused came from carrying the Zoey-Rythian team) and curves, like a stretched out version of what he imagined a female dwarf must look like. She had a metal arm of Lalna’s own design, lightweight, strong, and glowing green. She had a smile that could make the sun itself blush, ignoring the darkened and drab interior of the castle. Lalna blinked in surprise as she ran to hug him.

 

He grunted as he caught her.

 

“Er… Hello Zoey.”

 

“Hi Lalna! My arm is a lot better now, thanks for the prosthetic! I made bread! How’s Nano? Are you and her still living together? How’s Xephos? Why are you here? I’m glad you’re here because I think Teep has been missing you! And I have some rocks I think are special! Oh, and I have a bunch of mushrooms that might be new species. Would you look at them?”

 

Lalna thought for a moment. “Um… good, last time I saw her. Xephos and I are sharing a science lab right now. He’s same as usual. I’m here because Xephos and I found a planet that looks really dangerous. I wanted to ask you if I could borrow Rythian?”

 

Rythian shook his head, shocked. “I can’t believe you got all that.” He blinked. “Wait, _borrow_ me? Why should I help you?”

 

Lalna licked his dry lips and rubbed his hands together before speaking. “Well, it’s going to involve destroying a lot of computers and I thought that would be fun for you, plus I was thinking of you recently and it’s been a while since we’ve spoken,” he said, “and to be honest, I need someone to protect me, and you’re a lot more powerful than anyone or anything else I know. Oh, and I’ll be happy to look at both the mushrooms and the rocks.”

 

Rythian squinted at the shorter scientist and said, “We don’t have a reason to speak. Not since you destroyed our old castle.”

 

“Well, first of all, I thought that maybe after we fell into that canyon, we might start spending more time together. Second, I-I’m sorry. I just needed a place to store the nukes I stole from Sjin. I didn’t realize anyone lived there. I’m sorry Rythian. And to you especially, Zoey,” said Lalna, faltering as he reached the end.

 

Zoey detached finally, gave Rythian a look, and crossed her arms, the servos in her robotic limb whirring.

 

“Um, and I’ll talk to Teep if you’ll lead the way.”

 

* * *

  


Four hours later, Lalna and Rythian left, but only after being fed and supplied with food by Zoey, who had all but forced them to bring her. Though she put up a big fuss about being left behind, she wasn’t able to argue with the fact that she wasn’t much of a fighter.

 

Rythian stayed quiet for a very long time.

 

“Strife would have been more well-suited for this task. He’s more familiar with how to break a computer,” Rythian said.

 

Lalna said nothing.

 

“Why me and not him?”

 

“Thekrentok.”

 

“Goddamn you, Lalna.”

 

* * *

 

 

“We’re getting close,” Rythian said, stopping in his tracks.

 

Lalna turned to Rythian, and stared at him, agog.

 

“You’re right, but how d’you know that?”

 

Rythian stared down at his hands, as if seeing bolts of electricity crackle around his fingers. “It’s a new type of magic. I can still sense it, but it’s different than anything I’ve seen yet.”

 

Lalna bit his lip, and turned away. “Anyway, it’s just around this ridge. If you’ll… Continue to follow me.”

 

As they crept around the ridge, Rythian giggled, with frighteningly out of character gleam in his eyes. “Oh yes,” he said, “ _there_ it is.”

 

The portal stood before them, and as Lalna stopped to tell Rythian more about it, Rythian flew past him, his darkened, shimmery, end magic flying all around him and fading into the air. His eyes seemed to glow a dark purple as he laid his hands upon the crystal.

 

“Mmmmhmmm, yes, you are, aren’t you?” Rythian said, running his hands along the seams of Honeydew’s handywork, “Almost brand new, but I see the linkbook magic now. I hardly recognized you under that shiny coat. Ahahaha, yes, you are beautiful, who’s a good portal?”

 

Sparks cracked up his spine as he laughed and rested his head on the portal.

 

“Erm…” Lalna said, raising a finger, “Hold on to how happy you are right now.”

 

Rythian pulled away from the portal and raised an eyebrow, his face still appearing to be taught with a grin.

 

Lalna pulled the lever, and Rythian’s heart jumped as he saw the magic swirl and collide in the portal.

 

Lalna looked at him with a mix of discomfort and a knowledge that Rythian would be disappointed. Lalna passed through the portal.

 

After taking a very brief second to just admire the portal and feel it’s knowledgeable magic dance across his fingers, he stepped through.

 

His smile instantly fell.


	19. The Cavern of Flowers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rythian and Lalna find a safe haven, and have a little chat.

Gravel cracked in between Rythian’s high-heeled boot and the aluminum crust of the strange world he now found himself on. Thousands of modems whirred and crunched in a horrific technological cacophony. 

Rythian clenched his fist, the magic of the portal crying out in pain, and a distinct and terrifying lack of magic in the air.

The only magic came from the portal, Lalna, and himself.

He shivered at the thought of using Lalna as his sole magical conduit. 

“Wh-what is this place?” Rythian asked, fingering the many baubles he stored in his pockets.

“I’m not sure what happened here. It’s some kind of… computer planet.”

“I was hoping for more than that, Lalna.”

The scientist shrugged. “We’ll either figure it out while we strip it for parts or we won’t.”

The dark Ender magician looked at him incredulously. 

“You’re using this place for it’s PARTS?”

He shrugged again. “Honeydew’s stuck on the moon, so we need to build another ship.”

“I’m not sure if I ought to be more worried about the fact that you already had another ship, the fact that you have an entirely new scientist,” he spat scientist like a horrid slur, “or that you want me to help you farm this dead planet.”

“It’s not dead,” Lalna said, staring up at the orange sky and dark grey clouds that seemed to be intent on contradicting him, “these computers are still running, so there’s got to be power somewhere.”

He then turned hurt eyes away. “And scientists aren’t that bad.”

“Yeah, you just love xephos I’m sure,” Rythian said, End magic billowing out of his cloak, eyes hard. 

“What happened to thekrentok?” Lalna hissed, eyes hot. He was met with cold hands on his neck and head. 

Rythian looked calm now, meer inches away, as Lalna quieted.

“Do not use Dragon like it’s a swear,” his hands dropped to Lalna’s collar as he pushed him back, “especially not that word.”

Suddenly Rythian felt a warm and hopeful, yet absolutely miniscule gaze on his back. turned.

Magic.

He pointed, “We’ll head that way.” 

 

“Well, it’s a daisy.”

“All that science is finally paying off.”

“But why are we here?”

Rythian gently brushed his hand along the white, velvety petals, “Life is magic. Living things are magical conduits. Plants are better than animals. Animals are better than people.”

Lalna raised an eyebrow and rubbed his arm. The wind picked up. “What do you mean by better?”

“I mean less likely to die, when I channel through them.”

Lalna took a small step back. 

“The baubles I have should do most of the magic themselves. Conduits should only be important if things get really bad.”

He sat down and crossed his legs. He felt the bristles along the stem. “You’re a strong one, aren’t you?”

“So like you could use that?” 

Rythian turned to look at the scientist.

He was pointing up.

Above was a bird, a falcon. Judging from the shadow rolling across the floor, it was massive, at least one hundred feet across.

Rythian’s gut reaction was fear. Then confusion and anger. Fear again.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know and we need to move quickly.”

“Why?”

“Whatever that is,” Rythian said, “it isn’t alive,” he felt along the metal ground, tracing some invisible line, “this way. Quiet and quick.”

 

Rythian rolled up his sleeves and placed his palm on the floor.

“Stand back.”

As lalna moved back, the aluminum under Rythian’s hand bent inward, crushing against itself and opening into a dark hole.

Lalna, try as he might to stand back, found Rythian’s arms wrapped around him. Next, they were falling. 

Lalna’s back hit a soft flower bed. Rythian’s elbows were on either side of his head. His hair fell around Lalna’s face, and they were nearly touching.

Lalna’s face got warm.

“Are you alright?” Rythian asked.

Lalna only nodded.

“Good,” Rythian sat up onto his knees and clambered up onto his feet. 

Lalna propped himself up on his hands. “Where are we?” he asked, looking around at the strange flowers providing light and heat growing on the walls and ceiling. The floor was padded with even more of these distinctly alien plants, creating a porous cushion to pad the pair’s fall. 

“I felt life magic running from the daisy to… This place,” Rythian said as he sat near one of the large glowing flowers and crossed his legs, “I will be strongest here.”  
Lalna moved to sit nearer to him, “What comes next?”

Rythian looked at him with an unreadable stare, “You brought me here.”

Lalna wavered. “Right, um… Of course. We’re here to harvest materials, and leave, but I have a feeling we will need to bust up some machines,” he said, before pausing briefly, “perhaps starting with that falcon, if it comes to that.”

Rythian nodded with the same look plastered on his face. His mouth moved underneath his scarf as he said, “I plan to wipe this planet out after you gather enough materials.”

Lalna’s mouth twisted and little needles of sweat pressed out of his skin. 

“What do you… rather why would you…?”

“Do that?”

“Say that.”

Rythian shrugged and leaned backwards. “It’s the truth. You won’t need it afterwards, correct?”

“But Rythian,” Lalna said, hands running through his hair, “Destroying a planet sounds like a lot of magical energy.”

“Well,” he said, “Destroying it isn’t the right word. Perhaps I will make it into a garden.”

Lalna started, “The whole planet? Into a garden.”

Rythian looked back at him, eyes slightly narrowed, a nearly impossible-to-detect smile playing into them. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

Lalna’s skin prickled at the thought of Rythian’s sheer magical power. 

“So,” Lalna said, attempting to change the subject, “Is the falcon dead?”

Rythian’s head shook. “Even reanimated corpses have a type of life. Necromancy is really more like life magic than one might expect. The main difference is that instead of creating something new out of other being’s magic, you restore an old organism. I would know if it was dead.”

At the mention of necromancy, the life magic flowing through the flowers began chattering, somewhere between nervous and excited. 

“You’re familiar with Necromancy?” Lalna asked. He was learning more and more about his partner.

Rythian shrugged and offered a smile. “I’ll explain when you’re older. Would that be a problem?”

Lalna laid back down on the floor of the cave. “I dunno. I guess it just makes me nervous. What with the zombies and skeletons, you know? Like, I just know what it’s capable of.”

Rythian lie next to him, and said “lots of monsters were made with life magic. Both require life being drained from some other living thing. The magic doesn’t – sorry,” he said, as the chatter of the flowers around them reached a crescendo, “could you quiet down? I’m sorry that I brought him up, ok? Gods,” he sighed and continued as Lalna raised an eyebrow, “Anyway, the magic doesn’t really care where it ends up, so long as it’s in something.” 

Lalna rolled onto his stomach to see him better, “Who’re you talking to there?”

“The magic can talk. You just need to have the magical strength to listen.”

Lalna didn’t respond.

“It just got… either panic-y or excited when I mentioned necromancy. It’s hard to tell, because I don’t do too much work with life energy, so I’m a little rusty.”

Lalna nodded. “Do you think that you’ll be able to kill that bird?”

“I’ll be able to destroy it, yes. I’m glad I won’t kill it though.”

“Why?”

“It hurts, seeing magic disappear.” 

Lalna looked up at Rythian from his position on the ground, and remembered all of the things he killed in the ravine. He remembered every time Rythian winced when he ripped the head off a zombie. How he screamed when he killed the wyvern. 

He stuck his hand out for Rythian.

He took it.


	20. The Dragon v.s. The Falcon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rythian and Lalna work together to help take down the falcon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long, school's kicking my ass, not to mention that I'm working on a second fic. Overwatch ring any bells?

He wrapped the bandages around his wrists tighter. They covered the runes leftover from magical practice. There were many approaches that Rythian could take, but not multiple. Though they were happier near eachother, magical energies never played well with each other in action. 

He was far more experienced with end magic. Certainly his strongest magic, and most versatile. 

Rythian’s face was illuminated by the beam of light from the hole in the ceiling, until the shadow of the falcon passed over. Lalna came up behind him. 

“You’re ready? D’you think?”

Rythian nodded and clenched his fist. The end magic floating around him hummed, purred, and growled contentedly. It rubbed against the leg it wasn’t tethered to. 

Lalna watched as Rythian stared at the empty space below him. “Magic?” he whispered, getting a nod from the taller man. He was dressed lighter than usual, his cloak discarded, and his jacket tied around his waist, a white tank top, stained black at the top and in the front. Belts of baubles wrapped around his chest and waist. His shoulders were narrow, his chest bulged just barely

And his muscles, dear God his muscles. He was perfectly toned, and as he wrapped his other hand, his biceps bulged and shifted under his skin. 

Rythian turned to face him. He didn’t have his scarf pulled over his face. 

Oh no, Lalna thought, finally able to see Rythian’s whole head, Oh no, no, please, I can’t handle this. Anything but this.

Rythian’s lips and chin, though a shiny black, could only be described as beautiful. His lips pushed together in a pout, and naturally formed a squat oval. Though his eyes were old, his cheeks and mouth were perfectly smooth and youthful, parting slightly in confusion to reveal equally colored teeth.

Rythian followed Lalna’s gaze. His hand shot up to cover himself, and he faced away from the scientist. 

“Bring me my scarf,” he said, his pitchy voice much lower than usual. 

Reluctantly, but without arguing, Lalna complied.

Rythian wrapped up his neck and lower face and turned back around. He still wasn’t looking at Lalna. 

When he finally looked up at him, his eyes were softer than usual. “I need you to turn around. I’m going to build a staircase out of here. I’d like to be alone for it, but you just not watching will work.”

Lalna heard Rythian mutter some words he was unable to understand, followed by the rustling of leaves, some grinding, cracking, popping, and finished off with a hum of white noise

Lalna felt a light hand on his shoulder. “You can turn around now.” 

There was an ornate staircase made of vine and flowers, with a bannister, and twisting decorative forms with glowing tips up and down the wall and handrail. 

Lalna smiled, and said, “It’s beautiful.”

Rythian froze for a moment, before placing his other hand on Lalna’s opposite shoulder. 

“You’ve got to stay here. It’s not safe for you out there.”

“What?”

“That bird is a dangerous thing, thek,” he stopped and looked away, “the thing is powerful and big. I too, am powerful and big.”

Lalna pouted. “You’re normal-sized.”

“Ha. Not even compared to you.”

“Compared to that bird.”

“I’m also magical.”

“I brought guns!” Lalna said, holding his hands out pleadingly, “Big energy bomb-shooty guns!”

Rythian took a little step forward and pushed Lalna’s hands down. “Guns we both know you can’t use.” 

“Swords, I have those too!”

“Good, great! If I need you to disarm anything. We both know you can’t kill.”

Lalna harrumphed. 

“Don’t be that way. It’s cute,” Rythian responded before pulling his hands away, “I’m off, then.”

Rythian faded into the darkness that now seemed to coat the interior of the cave, and Lalna felt something much, much bigger moving in the darkness that Rythian became.

The feeling became a shape, which became a form, then a figure, and is it got even farther into the light, it became a four-legged dragon, with beautiful dark feathers coating its hide. It was built thickly, its torso exaggerated and muscular. Wings shot from its back, the tips of the longest end feathers curling elaborately. The dragon—Rythian, Lalna presumed—turned to appraise him, before climbing up the green stairwell. 

There were roars, thuds and rumbles coming from the metal ground above the cave. Dust fell from the ceiling. 

Lalna decided he had enough. He had to see what was going on, make sure that Rythian was alright, and maybe help, somehow. 

He climbed the massive stairwell, and pulled out and cocked his gun. He knew whatever the bird thing was, it wasn’t alive. Hopefully it appearing lifelike wouldn’t make it hard for him to attack it. He stuck his head out and saw sunlight.

He then saw shadow, as the aerial fight between the dragon and the falcon passed in front of the sun. 

Purple fire spewed from the dragon’s mouth, scalding the flesh of the enormous bird, grey, opaque sludge bubbling and oozing from the wound, then hardening and charring with the sudden heat. Though the wounds were ghastly, the falcon refused to slow down. Though the difference between the two was alarming, Rythian was still outmaneuvering the beast, and focusing attacks on the head and chest. 

The creature still refused to fall. And as it dove to avoid more damage to its eyes, Lalna realized the flaw in Rythian’s strategy.

Rythian was operating under the assumption that the creature would be weakest at its vital points. The thing, however, wasn’t alive, and as devastating as the attacks were, the thing would not necessarily go down to an attacks that would take down an actual bird of the same size.

Rythian needed to aim for where the wings attached to the torso.

Without another thought, Lalna fired into the air, drawing the attention of not only Rythian, but the thing as well. Though he hadn’t hoped for the bird, he had, at least, anticipated it. As Lalna ran, nearly falling, down the staircase, Rythian, in full-scale dragon mode, scrambled in after him. 

Shadow bent and swirled around the scaly form, until Rythian was completely obstructed from sight. As the dark fog dissipated, Lalna was left with the human form of Rythian once more. Rythian stood shakily. 

“Why…” he said, “Would you do that?” he said, his voice quaking with frustration.

Lalna helped him stand, and smiled, eyes twinkling. “I figured it out! How to kill it!”

Rythian crossed his arms, “How is that?”

“Well, Rythian, it’s not some living thing. You’ve got to incapacitate it, aim for the wings and that. 

Rythian blinked.

“You might not be able to kill it, but you can make it stop flying.”

Rythian looked at his feet in thought, and Lalna couldn’t take it anymore. He wrapped his arms around the mage. 

“And what is this now?”

“Just be careful out there,” Lalna said, face pressing into the crook of Rythian’s neck, “You aren’t going to die now that things have just started going well between us.”

Rythian returned the hug. “I understand.”

He pulled away after a second. “And now, Thekrentok, I must be going.”

Lalna pouted, yet conceded the use of Rythian’s arms back to him. 

Rythian began to climb back up the stairs. Shadows swirled around him.

“And Lalna?”

“Yes?”

“Do not follow me this time.”

He was once again replaced by a dragon. 

Lalna swore it winked at him. 

 

Rythian’s voice echoed through the cavern.

“I got it Lalna! This is weird.”

Lalna hiked up the stairs, seeing, at the top, the lithe silhouette of Rythian against the orange sky. 

The monsterous bird creation sat wingless approximately thirty yards away. The creature reeked of burning rubber, and the grey charred sludge ruined it’s face, covering both eyes, and oozing from the spaces where its limbs once were attached. It snapped it’s beak shut, at first at a seemingly random pace, then in an obvious loop.

Snap.

…

Snapsnapsnap.

Trill.

…

Snap snap.

Though he was honestly amazed to watch, he turned to Rythian, who he was continuing to realize was equally amazing.

“See?” Rythian said, “Weird!”

Lalna couldn’t help but laugh, watching his face twist into a confused grimace.

“What is it?” Rythian asked, a crease forming in between his eyebrows. 

Lalna tried, failed, to stop the giggle that burst from his lips. “Oh you’re just… that was kinda cute.”

Rythian said nothing, but his eyes widened, he turned a shade of dark red, and he put his hands over his mouth. “Oh no,” he said turning away, “No, no, nonononono.”

Lalna stepped closer, “What’s wrong?” and was met with a hand on his face, keeping him arm’s length from Rythian.

“…”

“Rythian?”

Rythian moved his hand down to Lalna’s shoulder and turned back to look at him, still red. “Let’s just keep working, shall we?”

Rythian turned on his heel and went back down into the cave.


	21. Life in Zero G's

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Honeydew discusses a problem he's been having with Xephos. Xephos tells him more about Rythian and Lalna.

Honeydew woke up, and pushed off the bed. He was trying to nail a kip-up, while he still had the advantage of low gravity. He wondered if this is how Xephos and Lalna felt, being so light. He almost had the kip-up this time.

 

It wasn’t anything to focus on however. Now that he was up, he turned on his microphone.

 

“Hail and well met, Xephos.”

 

 _“A new greeting every day, is that what’s happening?”_ crackled in Xephos’s voice.

 

“Yeah, man. What’s on the schedule today?”

 

_“Not much at all, honestly. Just run your daily checks on the machinery, and you’ll be free for the rest of the day.”_

 

 _Free for the rest of the day, he says,_ Honeydew thought, _as if day_ doesn’t _last bloody ages here._ “Right-o, on it.”

 

Though Honeydew was having trouble admitting it to himself, there was one thing he was worried about, and it was something he was going to have to bring up with Xephos.

 

“Oi, Xephos?”

 

_“Ho, Honeydew.”_

 

…

 

Now wasn’t the time for it though.

 

“Where’s all the cheese?”

 

_“…cheese?”_

“You heard me.”

 

_“Well I don’t know why there would be cheese on the moon?”_

“It’s what the dwarvern elders always told us.”

 

_“Is that right?”_

“Mhm!” Honeydew chuckled a little, considering how strange of a lie that ended up being on their part.

 

_“I’d wager that they either did it to keep the populous stupid. That or to make people think they knew more about the moon than they-”_

“Oi, Xeph?” Honeydew interrupted, “That’s not actually what I wanted to talk about.

 

_“Oh yeah?”_

 

“My, um, paunch is shifting back to, erm, my chestial region.”

 

Xephos paused, then made a noise of understanding. _“Fuck. How are you doing with that?”_

 

“Not great. I’m starting to get nervous about it. D’you think that you can send more up with Lalna?”

 

_“Psh. Once he’s here, you’ll be able to come back. We have plenty hormone treatment down at home base. Fuck. I’m sorry, Honeydew. That’s pretty much not fantastic, I’d wager.”_

Honeydew sighed and shrugged, “‘T’s fine. Any news from our favorite tall blond dork?”

 

“ _None at all, unfortunately. I just hope him and Rythian are getting on well._ ”

 

“What’s the history there anyway? I find it hard to believe that Lalna’s every made an enemy.”

 

“ _Well, in the past, Sjin had been rapidly expanding the scope of his resource gathering, including some of the more… habited places. He had only sent drones, so I don’t really fault him for a mistake made by a robot. Not to mention that he was planning on collecting and producing enough to just… give stuff away._

_“Anyway, one day he had found a stash of nuclear warheads. Lalna didn’t know that Sjin was essentially harmless, so he figured the best way to avoid any loss of life was to sneak in and steal the warheads. He ended up hiding them under an abandoned castle that he found.”_

“Mhm. And?”

 

“ _Well, it wasn’t super abandoned. Rythian and his apprentice, Zoey lived there. Rythian hit it while mining, and it exploded on the two of them. Zoey was much farther away, but still lost an arm under some falling debris. Rythian was fine, he has a special cloak._

 

“ _Zoey means a lot to Rythian, of course, and Rythian saw it as a declaration of war. A few civilians died, and then... Something happened. They met up in the desert and I didn’t see Lalna for a few days. I couldn’t find either of them, and when I went back home, Lalna was waiting for me. He said they settled it.”_

“Uh huh?”

 

“ _I was frankly under the impression that there was a lot of sexual tension there. Plus when I pressed Lalna about what happened he just started blushing and told me to_ ‘hush and mind my own beeswax’, _so._ ”

 

Honeydew laughed at that image. Even discounting Honeydew’s small stature, it was a joy to him to imagine the scientist’s imposing frame shy and bashful. He stopped and sighed, more contented than worried or exasperated, he realized, “Still, I hope he’s okay.”

 

“ _Me too, friend._ ”


	22. Magic in the Stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rythian and Lalna look at some stars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey I also post updates on my tumblr @inventorbenny so if you want to know when I update the tag is TTS Update

Lalna tossed another load of scrap metal and useful technological components into the pile he and Rythian had constructed. Since defeating the bird-thing, he had instructed Rythian on some of the more base components of computer construction, simply to help collect the required items and resources.

                

Rythian, to his credit, had been a quick learner, as long as he found the technology tolerable. He was receptive to wires, scrap metal, and what other, more complicated, parts were needed, but anything more in-depth he absolutely refused to listen to.

 

On the other hand, Rythian had successfully made a very interesting and all-around sturdy base. It had multiple stories, a balcony, and had those yellow flowers in any spare corner that was available. Though they never saw anything quite as large or terrifying as that bird, every once in a while, a drone that seemed only interested in scanning things would appear. Rythain would demolish them with a flick of his wrist. It was frankly an effective system.

 

What was ineffective was Lalna. This was in large part due to the quickly decreasing amount of clothes on Rythian. The two of them were constantly sweating in the heat of this planet, so Lalna supposed it made sense, but _damn_. After the fight, all clothes had gone back on, thankfully. However, the next day, Rythian stopped wearing his cloak after constructing the base. The next day, Rythian was back to just the tank top, the pants, and the scarf on his face. A few days later, Rythian went completely topless, switched his pants out for a skirt constructed out of old parachute material, and the scarf became a balaclava. Lalna, for his part, worked to disguise how distracted this made him.  

 

The worst part was that it felt like Rythian _knew._ Any little looks the two shared were always cut short by a flash of Rythian’s glowing turquoise eyes and a scoff.

 

Though Lalna was peeved with himself for his inability to focus, he had to admit he enjoyed the shift toward Rythian. He had begun to realize things about the other man that he hadn’t noticed before. Take, for example, the pricings at the top of the outer rim of Rythian’s ear, the tattoos in arcane languages that decorated his back, the “black tar” effect on his skin that did indeed fall all the way down to his chest. He slept without the bandages around his wrists, but at night, the symbols and scars glowed. The scarf turned into a sleep mask. Lalna, on the other hand, didn’t mind the night light.

 

Though there were things about Rythian that Lalna was learning, they were primarily cosmetic. He was still as inscrutable as ever, showing no emotion, nor providing any insight as to what he was thinking.

 

After a day of Lalna doing his best to get work done and learn more about Rythian’s thoughts and personality, the two had gone to sleep in their separate bunks. It seemed as if Lalna had only barely closed his eyes when he opened them to see a dark room with no turquoise glow.

 

Night still. He stood up. He considered grabbing a nearby weapon, but he came to the conclusion that it would be useless, considering that he couldn’t hurt anything weather he wanted to or not. Instead, he settled on simply sneaking around, moving from the bedroom onto the staircase, from there to the upper tower.

 

“You’re meant to be asleep.”

 

Lalna nearly jumped out of his skin at the voice.

 

“I didn’t know you could hear me.”

 

Rythian chuckled, “I could feel your magic moving around before I could hear you.”

 

Lalna looked him up and down. Rythian was lying on the ground on his back, using his scarf as a pillow, once again covered in cloaks and jackets, keeping him warm in the cool night of the desert, the glamour making him appear masculine dropped. “What are you up to at this hour?”

 

“Come down here, I’ll show you.”

 

Lalna laid down, leaving distance between the two of them.

 

“Come closer.” Lalna moved about an inch.

 

Rythian sighed and moved up to lay against Lalna. Their heads were touching, along with the rest of them. This was essentially a nightmare situation for Lalna, with Rythian’s breath against his neck, and his bare chest pressed up against Lalna’s very clothed side. He was attempting to not think about how nice it would be to not have his shirt on right now. He was torn between focusing mostly on not squirming away, and focusing on how cold Rythian felt against him.

 

Thankfully, Rythian gave him something new to focus on. Rythian pointed at the sky. “Over there is home.” He rocked away, back to his previous position, and Lalna felt a pain in his chest as the distance between them increased. He turned to Rythian.

 

“Give me a second.”

 

He got up, and went inside. A minute later, he came back out with a blanket, and got back into position next to Rythian. He draped the blanket over the both of them.

 

“So anyway, how did you know that home is that way?”

 

Rythian smiled. “It’s Zoey mostly. Her magic is… Potent. And it’s not like any other magic I’ve seen. It’s got this flowery flavor to it. I think it’s some kind of love magic, but I’ve never really seen it with anyone else, and I know other people love,” He looked at Lalna, “You’re an exception.”

 

Lalna sputtered, “Am-am not! I love! Like um… Nano, I love Nano! And Xephos and Honeydew!”

 

Rythian laughed and his whole face scrunched up. He rolled onto his side to better look at Lalna, “I meant you’re an exception in the way that you also have similar magic.”

 

All indignity left Lalna, and he felt his face get warm. “Oh.”

 

“It’s still notably herbal, but yours is more like cacao.”

Lalna didn’t know how to respond, so he stayed silent.

 

“I’ve been reading about science.”

 

Lalna gave an exaggerated gasp. He rolled onto his side to match Rythian. “Science? You? That’s unbelievable! I never would have guessed that you of all people were reading about science!”

 

Rythian huffed and rolled his eyes. “What I found out is that _you people_ have a method. A scientific one.”

 

Lalna bit back laughter. “Yes, that’s accurate.”

 

“I have a hypo-osith.”

 

Lalna burst out laughing this time. “Okay? Do tell?”

 

Rythian rolled onto his back and crossed his arms. “My hypo-osith is that the magic I’m feeling comes from me _being loved_ rather than the magic holder simply demonstrating capability to love.”

 

This shut Lalna up. “Ah.”

 

Neither of them said anything for what felt like a long time.

 

“You are not a good scientist,” said Rythian.

 

“What?”

 

“You are ruining my experiment.”

 

“It’s an experiment?”

 

“Yes. You have to give me results. Is my hypo-osith correct?”

 

“Well it’s…” Lalna was sweating, the cold night air turning the sweat icy, “I mean-”

 

“SUBjeCTS FouND. FoLLOW PLeaSE, SUBjeCTS.”

 

The two of them sat up to see a drone flying in front of them, projecting a holographic scene in front of itself that displayed the two of them back at themselves. Rythian raised his hand to knock it out of the sky, yet before he could, he found his hand yanked away by Lalna.

 

“FoLLOW PLeaSE SUBjeCTS.”

 

“Aren’t you just a little curious to see where it wants us to go?”

 

Rythian glanced back at the drone and nodded begrudgingly, as Lalna’s face lit up.

 

“We’ll make a scientist out of you yet.”


End file.
